SINGAPORE — As Foodpanda’s payment executive, he put fictitious food delivery riders on the firm’s payroll, pocketing close to S$8,000 to cover his mounting credit card debts.

Firathul Fariz Ferhat, 28, who was later promoted to the role of a compliance manager, then found himself in the awkward position of having to lodge a police report on behalf of Foodpanda when auditors found a payment discrepancy of more than S$2,500 in January 2018.

At the police post, he tried to downplay the incident, telling them that his firm had “accidentally transferred” the amount to an ex-employee who could not be located.

Firathul, a Singaporean, was sentenced to two months in jail on Wednesday (July 10) after he pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery for the purpose of cheating.

Three other charges, including one of giving false information to police at Kampong Ubi Neighbourhood Police Post, were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Court documents stated that Firathul’s job at Foodpanda — when he was first hired in February 2016 — was to tabulate payments for the food delivery company’s freelance riders once every two weeks on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

That was how he could amend the payroll spreadsheets, including adding fictitious riders’ identification numbers and names, and keying in the bank account numbers belonging to either his younger brother or himself.

His ruse went undetected for more than a year, starting from either July or August 2016, when he triggered a payment of S$1,608.01 to his younger brother’s account by creating a fake rider by the name of Muhammad Azman Ahmad.

AS SALARY INCREASED, SO DID HIS EXPENDITURE

Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheng Yuxi told the court that Firathul’s urge to commit forgery intensified around January 2017, when he was unable to pay his monthly credit card bills and was charged interest on his outstanding credit.

He altered the payment records again around February that year, by keying in S$2,012.83 owed to a rider by the name of Noor Hisham Paiman who does not exist.

Two months later, Firathul was promoted to the compliance manager position, and got a salary bump from S$2,400 to S$3,300, but he continued to forge accounts as he was still unable to clear his credit card debts.

That was because his expenditure “correspondingly increased”, DPP Cheng told the court.

In his new role, Firathul no longer had regular access to riders’ payroll spreadsheets, but he still found ways to doctor it.

Once, he did it while vetting the first payroll spreadsheet a new employee had prepared, giving a fictitious delivery rider by the name of Usof Muhammad Nasir a pay of S$2,546.50 for his “work” in December 2017.

DISCOVERED WHEN TRYING TO COVER HIS TRACKS

This discrepancy was discovered by Foodpanda’s auditors in January 2018, and they asked the company to lodge a police report. This happened to be part of Firathul’s new job scope.

After lodging the report and giving the police a false statement, Firathul let the cat out of the bag when he was trying to cover his tracks.

He asked his bank, DBS, to recall the transfer of S$2,546.50 that Foodpanda had made to his personal bank account. Foodpanda’s bank statement thus reflected a bank transfer from the accused’s own name, which was in fact a return of the sum.

Firathul later admitted to have taken a total of S$7,983.04 after a senior accounts executive picked up the transfer on Feb 2 last year and alerted the firm’s managing director.

While he returned the S$2,546.50 immediately after being discovered, he took until Feb 12 this year to return the rest of the money he had taken.

Firathul could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined for each charge of forgery he faced.