Hougang United admin assistant jailed for stealing nearly $280,000
A football club administrative assistant who misappropriated almost $280,000 from Hougang United football club was jailed for 24 months yesterday.
Tean Tai Tee, 25, a Malaysian, was in charge of keeping an account of the money in the Singapore Premier League club's safes at the office and the clubhouse.
Last October, Tean received a friend request on Facebook from a "Lily Tan", asking if she was interested in a part-time job, which involved using her bank account for transactions for "Lily Tan".
Tean would earn five per cent commission from each transaction.
"Lily Tan" also introduced Tean to a colleague, known as "Steven", and Tean gave her bank account details to them.
ACCOUNTS FROZEN
When Tean received money into her bank accounts, she would transfer it to "Steven".
But in November, her accounts were frozen by the police for investigation.
She then informed "Steven", and he told her to cook up a lie, telling her to inform the police that she had taken loans from an unlicensed moneylender, and that she had allowed the moneylender to use her bank accounts to make transactions as loan repayments.
Tean lied to the police. She was released on bail.
"Steven" then told her he could assist her in the matter and help her get her passport back, but he quoted her a fee of $30,000.
To pay him, Tean took money from the club's office safe on a daily basis in increasing amounts until last December.
In all, she took more than $145,000 from the office safe, and about $130,000 from the clubhouse safe.
She was discovered when her colleague felt her actions were suspicious, and asked to check the clubhouse's safe contents. Money was also found missing from the office safe.
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