SINGAPORE — By making amendments on Microsoft Excel files used for payrolls, a woman working at a fintech company committed cheating linked to more than $5.7 million, mostly relating to cryptocurrency.
On Feb 20, Ho Kai Xin, 32, was sentenced to nine years and 11 months' jail after she pleaded guilty to five cheating charges, eight counts of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct, and one count of giving false information to a public servant.
Thirty other charges were considered during her sentencing.
In January, the Singaporean was given six weeks' jail for contempt of court after spending the ill-gotten funds despite being ordered not to do so.
Ho will start serving her longer sentence after completing her earlier one.
The prosecution said she had used her ill-gotten gains to live a lavish lifestyle, including placing a down payment of nearly $750,000 for a penthouse in Gilstead Road near Dunearn Road worth more than $3.7 million.
She also bought sunglasses, bags, shoes, shirts and rings from luxury brand Louis Vuitton, each costing thousands of dollars, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court.
DPPs Bin and Ariel Tan stated in court documents that from Oct 20, 2021, to Oct 6, 2022, Ho worked as a payroll processing staff member at Wechain Fintech Singapore.
Wechain had been engaged to handle the payroll for employees of ByBit Fintech, a company from Seychelles that owns and operates a cryptocurrency exchange.
Ho was in charge of carrying out payroll processing for around 900 ByBit employees.
She committed cheating for profit for the first time in May 2022 by swindling Wechain of more than $117,000 after making amendments to Microsoft Excel files, reflecting payments that she was not entitled to.
The DPPs told the court: "When her actions went undetected, the accused became emboldened, going on a cheating spree to drain her client company, ByBit, of its monies.
"Month after month, she (made off with) massive amounts of cryptocurrency from ByBit's electronic wallet into four of her own."
Ho owned six bank accounts and four electronic wallets on four different cryptocurrency platforms.
To carry out her offences involving ByBit, she dishonestly inserted into an Excel file fraudulent rows showing purported payments owed by ByBit in cryptocurrency USDT.
She also stated in this row that the payment was to be made to one of her four electronic wallet addresses.
To deceive ByBit into paying out these amounts, Ho inserted the names of its employees together with her electronic wallet addresses.
She then received the money from ByBit in her electronic wallets before converting her ill-gotten gains into fiat currencies.
From May 31 to Aug 31, 2022, ByBit made eight cryptocurrency transfers from its electronic wallet to Ho's four wallets, amounting to more than 4.2 million USDT.
After committing multiple counts of cheating involving $5.7 million in total, she laundered over $4.3 million of her criminal proceeds.
In February 2023, a Wechain representative alerted the police about Ho's offences. Officers arrested her two months later.
Ho later lied to an investigation officer. Among other things, she claimed that her purported cousin — one "Jason Teo", who does not exist — was responsible for the unlawful transactions.
The court heard that police managed to seize from Ho more than $330,000 worth of items including a Mercedes-Benz car.
ByBit also managed to recover more than 1.1 million USDT from her electronic wallets and over $140,000 from one of her bank accounts.
Ho has not made any offers to repay the remaining amount to ByBit.
On Feb 20, defence lawyer James Gomez pleaded for his client, a mother of two young sons, to be given up to eight years and eight months' jail, adding: "Her actions were a lapse in judgment, and she has since reflected deeply on the consequences they have had on her family, the victim and the justice system."
Separately, a civil court had earlier ordered Ho not to utilise her ill-gotten gains.
However, she disobeyed the court orders and spent close to $840,000 on items, including multiple luxury goods.
For flouting the High Court orders, she was handed the earlier sentence of six weeks' jail on Jan 27.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
