Woman Reported $1.4 Million Scam, But Police Discovered She Embezzled Money From Company

You’ve just stolen $1.4 million from your company and you want to avoid getting caught. What do you do?

Transfer the money to an offshore account and live on a beach in Panama? Michael Scofield would be proud.

Keep working and hope no one finds out it was you? This isn’t as good, but at least you’ll avoid suspicion for a bit.

Act as if you’re the victim, lodge a police report, and say you’ve been scammed out of the exact amount you stole? Pure genius.

Woman Reported $1.4 Million Scam, But Police Discovered She Embezzled Money From Company

A woman lodged a police report on Thursday (Oct 10) claiming she had been scammed of S$1.4 million, but police later discovered that she had embezzled funds from her company.

According to TODAYonline, she told police that she had been transferring $1.4 million to an online friend because she was promised a parcel containing cash and valuables in return. The parcel, however, never arrived.

That doesn’t sound like the most sophisticated scam, does it?

Hey, would you like a gift parcel?

Sure! What do I have to do?

Oh, just transfer $1.4 million dollars to me, and I’ll send you a parcel full of cash and valuables.

So, you’re giving me cash for my… cash?

And valuables!

Are you sure this isn’t a scam?

Nope.

Good enough for me!

Obviously, the police found this story fishier than a wet market on a Saturday morning.

Investigations and arrest

The police discovered that the woman was employed as an accounts manager at her company, and thus had easy access to company funds.

Further investigations revealed that she had misappropriated company funds amounting to S$1,426,718, close to the amount she claimed she had lost through the scam.

The woman will be charged in court and if convicted, she could be jailed for up to 15 years and fined.

So, what have we learned?

If you want to be a criminal, make sure your plan is carefully thought out and leave no trace of your misdeed. Don’t steal.