SINGAPORE — An accountant who embezzled almost S$4 million from his former employer had given some of the money away, including helping at least 20 scholars through university. However, a judge on Wednesday (Sept 25) told him that his altruism would not earn him a lighter sentence.

Ariel Biasong Salamanes was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years behind bars, with District Judge Ong Luan Tze noting: “The point is that the money was not yours to give away to begin with.”

The 42-year-old Filipino had pleaded guilty on Tuesday to siphoning the money over a period of about four years from QlikTech Singapore, where he had worked from 2012 to 2017. 

His lawyer Christine Sekhon argued that he had become depressed towards the end of 2014, and that his “altruistic actions” had helped him because his beneficiaries looked up to him.

While the judge said that she had “some sympathy” for Salamanes’ situation, she noted: “We all have problems in our lives to deal with but that doesn’t give you an excuse to go around committing crimes.”

His offences were well-planned and executed, even though they were not sophisticated, she added.

Salamanes became a certified public accountant in 1997 and was called to the Bar in his home country in 2008.

ACCESS TO CHEQUE BOOKS, BANK ACCOUNTS

The State Court heard that Salamanes had had access to his company’s cheque books and bank accounts. He was authorised to be the sole signee on company cheques for payments of up to S$10,000.

As part of his job for the sales and marketing arm of the big data analytics company, Salamanes handled book-keeping, balance sheets, as well as accounts payable and receivable.

He signed off on 451 company cheques between April 2013 and June 2017 to get the cash, covering up his crimes by instructing others to make false entries into the company's electronic accounting system.

He then remitted most of the S$3.97 million he took to his home country, performing more than 835 remittances across 241 days. 

Of the S$3.57 million remitted, S$1.69 million was kept for himself, while another S$1.48 million was for his family and boyfriend. About S$408,000 was retained in Singapore for his own use.

He also sent some of the cash to the United Arab Emirates where he had some credit-card debts.

The Commercial Affairs Department received information on June 13, 2017 that Salamanes might have misappropriated money from QlikTech by depositing company cheques into his personal bank account.

At the same time, QlikTech began its own internal checks and later filed a police report.

Salamanes' Singapore bank account, which contained about S$22,000, was seized along with items such as remittance slips and cash withdrawal slips.

He has not made any restitution to QlikTech to date, but the company has managed to claim about S$3.9 million from fraud insurance.