Woman, 60, admits using erasable ink to steal over S$1.87 million from boss's firm while working as his PA

A personal assistant who altered cheques using an erasable-ink pen to misappropriate more than S$1.8 million from her employer’s company over nearly seven years will be sentenced in March 2026.

Teh Mui Eng Judy, 60, was charged with forgery and acquiring property that directly represented her benefits from criminal conduct, to which she pleaded guilty.

Her offences took place between June 2010 and April 2017, while she was working as a personal assistant to the director of the company MBH Hire Purchase.

Fake cheques

Court documents seen by Mothership stated that Teh’s duties included preparing cheques and payment vouchers that were payable to her boss’ brother, who was also a director of MBH.

Because of this role, she had direct access to the company’s financial paperwork and regularly presented cheques and vouchers to her boss for approval.

In 2010, Teh devised her first scheme to siphon off company funds.

From June 2010 to March 2015, she prepared cheques made out to “American Express International Inc” or “UOB Card Centre”, falsely telling her boss that his brother had requested for advance funds to be paid to those accounts, when in fact the brother had not.

Believing her, her boss would sign off on the cheques along with the corresponding payment vouchers in his brother's name, which were labelled “Advance to Director”.

Teh then wrote her own credit card details on the back of the cheques and deposited them, causing the money to be transferred into her own American Express or UOB accounts instead.

She later withdrew the funds for her personal use.

Erasable-ink pen and altered payees

In December 2014, Teh discovered that her boss’ brother had cancelled his bank and credit card accounts.

She then came up with a new scheme to continue stealing money.

Between December 2014 and April 2017, she used a pen with erasable ink to write cheques payable to Premium Automobile, a company that her boss and his brother were also directors of.

She would then present the cheque to her boss, again falsely claiming that payments were due, when in fact they were not.

After her boss signed the cheques, she erased the payee name and replaced it with companies that she herself was a director of such as Innova Alliance, Rejoice Entertainment and The Chillout Place.

She would also dispose of the original payment vouchers and create new ones, forging her boss’ initials to make them appear legitimate.

The altered cheques were then deposited, transferring money from MBH to her own companies.

She used the funds for family expenses and to finance her businesses.

Discovery and police report

Her boss discovered the offences in May 2017, after which MBH began an internal investigation. A police report was lodged in February 2018.

Teh was charged in court about three years after the police report was filed and pleaded guilty on Jan. 12 this year, according to The Straits Times.

In total, Teh misappropriated S$1,872,585.61 and she has since made full restitution of this sum.

Top images via Canva, Mothership