Jail for ex-Bornga employee who was on the run for 7 years after stealing S$32,000

SINGAPORE: A manager of a Korean restaurant was given a chance to repay sales proceeds he had stolen after his actions were discovered.

Instead, he continued stealing and eventually pocketed a total of almost S$32,000. When confronted again, he fled Singapore for seven years before he was arrested last year.

Lim Beng Chuan, now 57, was jailed for a year on Thursday (Jun 2) after pleading guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust by an employee.

At the time of the offence in 2014, he worked as a manager at Bornga restaurant in The Star Vista. The eatery has since closed down.

As the restaurant's manager, Lim was entrusted with monitoring and collecting sales proceeds, and depositing them in the eatery's bank account three times a week.

On Mar 11, 2014, the director of the restaurant discovered that Lim had not been depositing sales proceeds in the account since Feb 19, 2014.

During that period, Lim pocketed about S$25,000 worth of sales proceeds in cash. When confronted, he admitted to taking the money and claimed that his brother had financial difficulties.

The director decided to give Lim until the end of March to repay the money. He continued to work in the restaurant, and to be entrusted with depositing the sales proceeds on a daily basis.

Lim was also tasked with showing the director documentary evidence of the daily deposits.

However, the director later discovered that Lim had again failed to deposit sales proceeds from Mar 21 to Mar 24, 2014. He had taken another S$6,800 in cash during this period.

When confronted on Mar 24, 2014, Lim again admitted to taking the money to settle his personal problems.

The restaurant director called the police on Mar 26, 2014 to report that Lim had pocketed sales proceeds and that he suspected Lim was leaving the country.

Lim fled to Malaysia that night, after another confrontation with the director.

He remained on the run for more than seven years, until he was arrested at Chinatown MRT station on Dec 14 last year.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivanathan Jheevanesh sought 10 to 12 months' jail, citing Lim's absconding as a key aggravating factor.

He also argued that Lim betrayed the high degree of trust placed in him as restaurant manager.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Rajan Supramaniam highlighted that his client made full restitution of the stolen money.

When District Judge Bala Reddy asked why Lim ran away for several years, his lawyer said he was in a "panic state" because of personal financial issues.

Lim has prior convictions for theft, cheating and criminal breach of trust, but the prosecution argued that these should not weigh significantly on the sentence as his last offence was committed a decade before the present one.

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