Jail for Crave manager who pocketed over S$13,500 of company revenue she was supposed to put in bank

SINGAPORE — Needing to pay back loans she had taken out from licensed money lenders, the area manager of a food and beverage firm misappropriated more than S$13,500 from her employer.

On Wednesday (Dec 6), 49-year-old Haryati Hasan was sentenced to four months' jail after she pleaded guilty to committing a criminal breach of trust as an employee.

The court heard that at the time of the offence, Haryati was the area manager for Crave Foods, a food-and-beverage business best known for its popular nasi lemak from Adam Road.

In her role, Haryati was in charge of handling the cash received from Crave Foods' outlets and to count and ensure that the amount from each outlet tallied with the sales at the end of each day.

Her duties also included depositing the cash into the company's bank account.

In August this year, she had taken out loans from licensed money lenders and was in need of money to keep up with the loan repayments.

This was when she decided to help herself to some of her company's money.

Over several occasions between Aug 14 and 24, she misappropriated a total of S$13,528.15 from Crave Foods' outlets at Compass One and Waterway Point malls. The money was revenue received by the outlets.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Darren Ang said that instead of depositing the money into Crave Foods' bank account on the same day, Haryati had dishonestly taken the money for her own use.

She used all the money she misappropriated, spending about S$6,000 on her son's medical fees and the rest to either pay off her loans or for her own personal expenses.

During a routine audit on Aug 22, Crave Foods detected that the money banked in was less than the sales transacted.

The company then sought Haryati's assistance in their investigations.

When she was first asked about the deficit, she lied and told the company that she had deposited the cash into its bank account.

However, she was unable to produce the receipts for these supposed deposits and later admitted that she had taken the money for her own use.

To help pay off the money she took, Crave Foods deducted her salary for August but no further restitution has been made since.

She was eventually arrested on Aug 30.

'NOT A ONE-OFF MOMENT OF FOLLY'

Seeking a jail term of between four and five months, DPP Ang stated that this was not the first time that Haryati had committed such an offence because she was convicted in 2015 for a similar crime.

He added that her latest wrongdoing was committed over several occasions, which meant that it was not a one-off moment of folly and she demonstrated persistence in offending.

For committing a criminal breach of trust as an employee, she could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.