Indian man jailed in Singapore for spending Rs 16 lakh mistakenly sent to his account

The money has not been recovered till date. (Representational image)

A 47-year-old Indian man has been sentenced to nine weeks in a Singapore jail after he failed to return SGD 25,000 (about Rs 16 lakh) which was transferred to his bank account by mistake last year. According to a report in The Straits Times, Periyasamy Mathiyazhagan spent some of the amount to pay off his debts and sent the rest to his family in India, despite knowing that the money wasn't his.

The matter was presented at a court in Singapore recently where Periyasamy pleaded guilty to misappropriating the money.

The complaint against Periyasamy was filed by an administrator at a plumbing and engineering firm where he used to work from 2021 to 2022. The woman (identity withheld) had, on April 6, 2023, transferred the Rs 16 lakh to his bank account, which she had thought was the company’s account.

She had taken a personal loan from the company and was paying it off.

“After making the erroneous transfer, the complainant was informed by (a director at the firm) on the same day that the account did not belong to the company, and the company did not receive the cash,” The Straits Times quoted the State Prosecuting Officer (SPO) as saying.

The woman then told Periyasamy’s bank about the error in transferring the money and sought its help to recover the money. On April 10, 2023, the bank sent a letter addressed to him, stating that the woman had applied for money to be returned. The letter, however, was sent to the company instead as it was identified as Periyasamy’s last known address in the bank’s records.

On May 9, the bank informed her that her request was turned down and on May 23, she filed a complaint with the police, The Straits Times reported.

Investigations revealed that Periyasamy discovered that the money had been deposited into his bank account in April and despite knowing that it wasn't his, he transferred it to another bank account over four separate transactions on May 11 and 12.

At the end of the month, administrative staff at the company noticed that the bank’s letter addressed to Periyasamy had been sent to the firm instead. The firm’s director then called him and  handed him the letter, asking him to return the SGD 25,000. But, 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 sent a portion of the money to his family in India. He requested for more time to return the cash to the woman and proposed a monthly repayment of SGD 1,500.

In a similar incident last year, a 26-year-old Indian national was jailed for nine weeks after he pleaded guilty to three counts of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct, involving more than SGD 26,000 (about Rs 16.7 lakh) that was traced to three fraud victims in the US.

In exchange for at least SGD 100 (about Rs 6,400), Bhambri Kunal had withdrawn the cash from Singapore bank accounts, which were sums later traced to three fraud victims in the US.