A 20-year-old Malaysian woman was sentenced to four months’ jail on July 10, 2025, after dishonestly misappropriating more than S$38,000 from her employer, a local recycling firm. The funds were not used for debt repayment as she initially claimed, but instead were donated to Chinese livestreamers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
Chew Yu En pleaded guilty to one count of dishonest misappropriation as an employee under Singapore law. A second charge for falsifying payment voucher entries was taken into consideration.
Chew started working at Sin Le Heng Recycling in June 2024 as a clerk, drawing a monthly salary of S$2,300. She relocated to Singapore from Malaysia on a work permit and lived with her boyfriend in a rented room. Her only close family connection in Singapore was her uncle, a permanent resident.
At Sin Le Heng, Chew’s responsibilities included issuing payments to customers who brought in items for recycling. These payments were made from the company's petty cash, which was kept in a cash box at her office counter. The process was straightforward: items brought in were weighed, a note was issued with the quantity, and Chew would then issue a payment voucher and pay the customer in cash.
However, when her supervisor went overseas in December 2024, Chew found herself working alone in the office more frequently. It was during this unsupervised period that she began stealing petty cash from the company.
Between December 2, 2024, and January 9, 2025, Chew misappropriated S$38,315.30 across 42 separate incidents. She began with small amounts S$65.50, S$198 and progressively took larger sums. The largest single amount misappropriated was S$2,782.50 on December 24, 2024.
To cover up the thefts, Chew created false payment vouchers with fictitious transactions and forged the necessary signatures to make the documents appear legitimate. In some cases, she even duplicated real transactions, issuing vouchers for actual purchases and pocketing the corresponding sums.
The scam was discovered on January 8, 2025, when one of the company directors noticed inconsistencies in the financial records. When confronted the next day, Chew admitted to taking the money. She was arrested the same day after her supervisor reported the matter to the police.
Initially, Chew claimed the money was used to repay debts owed by her father. However, under further investigation, she revealed the money was actually used to send monetary gifts to unnamed Chinese idols via the Douyin livestreaming platform. She has made no restitution to the company.
During the court hearing, Chew was unrepresented and did not offer any formal mitigation. She had previously requested to delay the hearing so she could leave the country, but this was denied by the judge, who cited the seriousness of the offence.
The prosecution sought a jail sentence of four to six months, referencing similar cases involving theft and abuse of position. The court ultimately handed down a four-month jail sentence.
This case adds to the growing concerns about online gifting culture on livestreaming platforms, where some individuals feel compelled to donate excessively to content creators sometimes at the cost of breaking the law. The case also raises red flags around internal controls and supervision in small businesses handling cash.
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