SINGAPORE — A bank employee in need of cash to pay off her mounting debt embezzled funds from her company to pay a licensed moneylender who turned out to be a scammer.
Over two months, Nurashikeen Sinin misappropriated cash from her employer P T Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).
By the time the 37-year-old Singaporean came clean, she had siphoned at least $628,000 — 25 times the loan sum she had originally sought from the fake moneylender.
Nurashikeen was jailed for four years on Wednesday (5 January) after pleading guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust as a servant. A count of falsifying documents was considered for her sentencing.
The Singaporean had joined BNI in 2001 and was promoted to a supervisor at the Limited Purpose Branch (LPB) of BNI by the time of the offences in 2020. She was earning a salary of $4,200.
As part of her job, Nurashikeen counted cash in BNI LPB’s vault at the end of the day, prepared and submitted the cash balance sheet for the day and oversaw the tellers, collecting cash and remittance documents from them.
Nurashikeen was also entrusted with the discretion to decide when to transfer excess cash to the main branch of BNI.
By 2020, Nurashikeen had outstanding debts of over $83,000 consisting of $34,600 from credit cards, $12,400 from licensed moneylenders, and a staff loan from BNI of $36,700.
To pay off her debt, Nurashikeen turned to another moneylender. She found a moneylender’s…
