Apartment manager jailed for 36 weeks for stealing public money more than 60 times

SINGAPORE: An apartment manager stole money from the public 69 times, which amounted to a total of more than $20,000. The 55-year-old suspect, who was then responsible for managing several apartments and handling the fees paid by apartment residents, is now facing four charges, including breach of trust, corruption, and other serious crimes. 

According to the investigations, apartment residents are usually required to pay fees to the Management Corporation Strata Title (MCST) for various reasons, such as if residents want to renovate their apartment, they need to pay a refundable deposit of S$1,000, and the like. These payments can be made electronically or by check. 

The apartment manager’s responsibility was to receive cash or cheques on behalf of the MCST, deposit the cheques for the MCST, and transfer the received cash from residents to the MCST’s bank account. Furthermore, for electronic payments, he needed to provide the resident’s MCST PayNow information for verification. 

However, to carry out his crime, the suspect repeatedly asked the residents to hand him cash or transfer the money into his personal PayNow account, from which he successfully received a total of more than S$20,000 on 69 different occasions. 

His crime was revealed when his supervisor discovered discrepancies and noticed a significant amount of money missing in their records. Since the suspect was the key manager, his supervisor questioned him to the point that he admitted his illegal actions. 

With this, the suspect’s supervisor gave him 10 days to make a full payment of all the money he stole, but he failed to do so by the deadline. The company then fired him and reported the incident to the police. 

It was revealed that the suspect used the money to pay off his personal debts and for his daily expenses. Moreover, it was revealed that after the suspect was fired, his colleagues continued to receive harassing calls from loan sharks.

The suspect pleaded guilty to two of the four charges, and after taking the remaining charges into consideration, the judge sentenced him to 36 weeks in jail. The suspect also paid a partial compensation of S$4,500. 

In similar theft-related news, it was also recently reported that a project manager took advantage of his boss’s death and illegally changed their company’s account into his own personal account, stealing more than S$500,000 of funds. 

The 45-year-old suspect faces four charges in court and is now sentenced to four years and one month in prison, a fine of S$9,000. 

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