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A Singaporean court has sentenced a 47-year-old Indian citizen to nine weeks in prison for using money he mistakenly received in his bank account to pay off debts and sending some of the money to his family in India. PTI reported. It was reported. The man, identified as Periyasamy Mathiyazhagan, worked for a plumbing and engineering company from 2021 to 2022. On April 6, 2023, the company director deposited S$25,000 (approximately Rs. 1.6 million) into the man's bank account based on the following assumptions: It was a company account. Public Prosecutor (SPO) Lim Yeo Leong said the manager intended to repay the personal loan taken by the company. “After the incorrect transfer, the complainant was informed by the (managing director) on the same day that the account did not belong to the company and the company had not received the money,” the SPO said.
The manager then informed the male bank about the incorrect transfer and asked them to cooperate in recovering the money. On April 10, 2023, the bank sent a letter to the man's address explaining the transfer and asking him to repay the money. However, the letter was delivered to the company itself as the man's last address on file with the bank was that of the company. When the letter was not delivered to the man's address, the bank informed management that his request to recover the money had failed. He then filed a police report on May 23, 2023. The police investigation revealed that the man recognized that a large amount of money had been deposited into his account in early May 2023. The SPO informed the district court that the criminals were aware that the large amount of money did not belong to them and had been wrongly transferred. Nevertheless, on May 21 and 22, he transferred the entire amount to another bank account in four installments.
Later that month, company employees learned that the company itself had received a letter from a bank asking the man to send money. After that, the company called me and asked me to pay back the money, but I replied that I used all the money to pay off the debt. During police interrogation, the suspect also revealed that he had sent some of the money to his family in India and asked for time to return the money in exchange for a monthly payment of S$1,500. However, The Straits Times reported that the money has not been recovered to date.