Clerk siphoned $1M from car rental firm via cheques forged with erasable ink

A car rental firm clerk hatched a plan to steal monies from her employer using bogus payment vouchers and a pen with erasable ink, a court heard on Friday (21 December).

For four-and-a-half years, from January 2011 to July 2015, Mariam Ahmad, 58, would get her boss to sign on cheques, then erase the names of payees and write down her own name in permanent ink.

The clerk squandered more than $1 million in ill-gotten gains on gold jewellery, expensive furniture and overseas vacations for her family, and even gave cash to friends, neighbours, acquaintances as well as relatives in Singapore and Indonesia.

Her crimes came to light when the bank contacted her employer because one of the cheques had not been filled in properly. The cheque, which was made payable to Mariam, prompted her boss to look into the company’s accounts.

At the State Courts on Friday, Mariam was jailed for a total of eight years and 10 months. She pleaded guilty to 30 charges – 20 of forgery of a valuable security and 10 of concealing the benefits of criminal conduct. Another 277 similar counts were considered in sentencing as part of her plea bargain.

Accused was in charge of firm’s cheques

Mariam started working for L. H. Car Rental in April 2010. She prepared payment vouchers for payments of commission, salary and other payments for the firm. She was the only person in the company who dealt with its cheques, which required its director Law Kok Leng’s signature.

“In the course of working for the company, Mariam realised that there was a lack of checks and balances in the issuance and signing of the company’s cheques,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Lim.

In December 2010, she hatched a plan to enrich herself at her company’s expense. Mariam would prepare bogus payment vouchers, and use a pen with erasable ink to write the names of the payees on the cheques for payment of these vouchers. She would then forward the cheques and payment vouchers to her boss.

After Law had signed on the cheques, Mariam would erase the names of the payees and write down her own name in permanent ink. The first cheque she forged was dated 7 January 2011.

Using this modus operandi, Mariam forged 242 cheques up till 13 July 2015. The total amount she unlawfully got was $1,093,482.68.

She would deposit the cheques into her bank account, and sometimes transferred monies into her daughter’s bank account in order to conceal her benefits of criminal conduct.

In August 2012, Mariam opened a new bank account for the sole purpose of concealing her criminal proceeds.

Dissipated cash, no restitution made

Mariam used the monies she pocketed to rent three cars from the company, gave cash gifts, and repaid bank and credit card loans. She also used the sum to pay her monthly bills and for legal fees for her divorce in 2007. She also brought her family on overseas trips and bought gold jewellery for herself, her two daughters and her granddaughter. She also bought furniture and 4D betting tickets with Singapore Pools.

Only $2,224 was seized from a furniture company – the sum was meant to be a refund for the trade-in of some of Mariam’s old furniture. Her two bank accounts only had $17.89 and $29.94, while her daughter’s bank account used to conceal her criminal proceeds contained $0.

Nothing else of value was recovered, and Mariam has not made any restitution.

The prosecutor asked for at least eight-and-a-half years’ jail in total for Mariam, who was previously jailed 16 months in 2002 for criminal breach of trust as a servant, and jailed 19 months in 2005 for the same crime.

In mitigation, Mariam said she still has a housing loan to settle.

District Judge Terence Tay agreed with the prosecution on the need for a deterrent sentence. He noted, among other things, that her crimes would have gone on undetected had bank staff not alerted her employer.

The judge also noted the significant loss incurred by her employer, and that Mariam used up all the money and spent it on non-necessities. Noting that the employer had placed a lot of trust in her, the judge said companies should have a strong system in place to track their finances.

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