News

Clinic Assistant Who Stole More Than $100,000 With Co-Worker Gets Jail

2019-09-13 , 9:00 pm

Have you ever worked as a cashier?

Well, I have. And I can tell you that as a poor student working as a part-time cashier, it is certainly very tempting to steal from the cashier.

Especially when you do the settlement and you realise that there are thousands of dollars in front of you.

But of course, I don’t – even when I’m done to my last dollar for the week.

And when you’ve worked long enough, you start to see flaws in the system that would allow you to take away cash without anyone knowing.

How tempting is that?

Well, tempting enough for someone to actually steal. (don’t worry, it’s not me)

Clinic Assistant Took More Than $100,000

When Sahrina Mohd Ghuas, 43, discovered a loophole in the Temasek Medical Centre Outlet at Yew Tee point-of-sale system, she started misappropriating money by taking her patients’ cash.

It’s unknown what the loophole is.

She first started in May 2015.

Sahrina would use the money pocketed to pay for her family’s daily expenses.

She continued exploiting the system until February 2017, after taking a total of $58,408 in total.

Co-Worker Wanted In

Sahrina’s co-worker, Sim Swee Ching, 56, approached her telling her that she wanted to take money from the clinic too in March 2017.

One wonders how her co-worker knew she was taking money – perhaps she wasn’t covering her tracks well enough.

She then taught her how to manipulate the system and they became partners-in-crime (literally).

Together, they took a total of $53,196 on numerous occasions from March 2017 until 31 Jan 2018.

Both Admitted To Committing Offences

The clinic’s doctor-in-charge told their chief financial officer on 5 Jan 2018 after he found out that the electronic patient records had been tampered with.

According to TODAYonline, discrepancies were found in the clinic’s daily cash sales from 2014 to 4 Jan 2018.

Both Sahrina and Sim admitted to committing the crimes during break times.

Sahrina Sentenced To Jail

She had managed to take a total of $111,606 over more than two years.

Sahrina’s lawyer Wee Hong Shern said in mitigation that she was supporting her entire family- including four children at the point in time.

She was eventually sentenced to one year and four months’ jail yesterday (12 September) after pleading guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust as a servant.

For criminal breach of trust as a servant, she could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.

Researcher Warns That Point-of-Sale Systems Filled With Flaws

Not only can POS systems be easily hacked, they can also store credit card information.

Companies should find out if their data on the POS devices are encrypted to prevent any leak of private information.

Sahrina Is Not The First Clinic Assistant To Steal

In 2014, a clinic assistant stole $200 that a patient had brought to pay for a heart screening.

She was jailed for one week.

And in 2017, a part-time receptionist in a Bishan clinic was sentenced to three months’ jail after stealing bottles of cough mixture containing codeine to sell.

Notice a trend here? All of them who stole ended up in jail. Moral of the story? Don’t steal money. Don’t steal your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend.

Just see and look only. Don’t steal anything.