Swissco discovers S$2.58m fraud by senior employee
Business Times
27 Dec 2014
Malminderjit Singh
She allegedly misappropriated money through her position as vice-president of finance at Swissco
THE new board at Swissco Holdings has discovered fraud by one of its senior employees totalling S$2.58 million over the last three years. A female employee, who the company did not name, had allegedly misappropriated this sum of money through her position as vice-president of finance at Swissco.“Preliminary investigations revealed that the employee had falsified the company documents to direct payment of the misappropriated funds to her personal and family members’ bank accounts,” Swissco said in an announcement on Monday evening.
A senior spokesperson of the group told The Business Times that Swissco discovered the alleged fraud recently and has recovered about S$900,000 from the accused.
Senior management of the group also filed a police report on Friday to report the alleged fraud. The accused employee was suspended and Stone Forest Corporate Advisory appointed to conduct an independent review.
Financial losses arising from the misappropriation, at S$1.68 million, are not expected to have an impact on the profit and net tangible assets of the group for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2014, Swissco said.
Swissco had made several changes to its board on Dec 1, notably with a change in its chairman.
Swissco’s fraud allegations came less than two months after another case in the shipping and marine sector in November when two senior executives of Danish marine fuel supplier OW Bunker’s Singapore subsidiary were alleged to have committed fraud which plunged the group into liquidation.
Earlier this month, three ex-ST Marine senior executives were charged with graft.
Swissco traded at 53 Singapore cents, down 1.5 cents or 2.8 per cent, before the announcement.
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