Indian national convicted in Singapore for accidentally transferring money into his account

A 47-year-old Indian national was sentenced to nine weeks in prison by a Singapore court for failing to repay SGD 25,000 (approximately Rs 16 lakh) that was mistakenly transferred to his bank account, despite knowing that Money didn’t belong to him.

On October 14, Periyasamy Mathiyazhagan pleaded guilty to embezzlement of the money and told the court that he used the money to pay off his debts and transferred some of it to his family in India.

Periyasamy worked for a plumbing and engineering company from 2021 to 2022.

His legal troubles began on April 6, 2023, when an administrator of the company transferred the SGD 25,000 to his bank account, which she had assumed was the company’s account.

Court documents referred to her (unnamed) as the complainant in the case.

Public Prosecutor (SPO) Lim Yeow Leong told the court that the woman had taken a personal loan from the company and wanted to pay it off.

“After making the erroneous transfer, the complainant was informed by (a director of the company) on the same day that the account did not belong to the company and the company had not received the money,” The Straits Times quoted the SPO saying .

The woman then informed Periyasamy’s bank about the erroneous transfer and asked them for help in recovering the money.

On April 10, 2023, the bank sent a letter addressed to him stating that the woman had demanded the money be returned.

However, the letter was sent to the company instead because it was identified in bank records as Periyasamy’s last known address.

On May 9 of the same year, it informed her in another letter that her request for a refund of the money had been unsuccessful.

She then filed a police report on May 23rd.

Investigations revealed that Periyasamy had discovered that the money had been deposited into his bank account earlier this month.

The SPO explained that the perpetrator did not expect to receive such a large amount of cash and knew that it did not belong to him.

Nevertheless, he transferred the SGD25,000 to another bank account in four separate transactions on May 11 and 12.

Sometime at the end of the month, the company’s administrative staff noticed that the bank’s letter addressed to Periyasamy had been sent to the company instead.

The company director called him to the company, handed him the letter and asked him to pay back the SGD 25,000.

Periyasamy replied that he had used up the amount to pay off his debts.

In a police interview in November 2023, he told officers that he had also transferred some of the money to his family in India.

He asked for more time to return the money to the woman and suggested a monthly repayment of SGD 1,500.

To date, the money has not been reclaimed and he has not made a refund, the newspaper says.