A 47-year-old Indian man living in Singapore mistakenly received SGD 25,000 (approximately Rs 16 lakh) in his bank account last year. Instead of returning the money to the source account or to its rightful owner, he used the entire amount to settle his debts. Not just this, Periyasamy Mathiyazhagan also remitted a portion of it to his family in India. A court in Singapore has now sentenced him to a jail term of nine weeks – a little over two months – after he pleaded guilty to misappropriating the money.
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An administrator at a plumbing and engineering firm, where Mathiyazhagan worked for a year starting in 2021, availed a personal loan from the company and was repaying it. She mistakenly transferred the amount to Mathiyazhagan’s bank account, believing it to be the company’s account.
“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.
Soon after, the woman contacted Mathiyazhagan’s bank and informed them about her mistake and sought assistance in recovering the money. Four days later, in April 2023, the bank sent a letter to his company’s address, which was listed as his last known address, informing him that the sender had requested the return of the transferred money.
A month after the initial letter, on May 9, the bank notified the woman that Mathiyazhagan had refused to return the money, following which she filed a police complaint.
Police investigations revealed that Mathiyazhagan was aware of the erroneous transfer and had moved the funds to another bank account through four separate transactions in May.
Towards the end of May, the company noticed that the letter addressed to Mathiyazhagan was sent to them. The company’s director handed the letter to him and urged him to return the amount in full to the woman. In response, he admitted that he had already used the money to pay off his debts.
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In November 2023, he told the police that he used up the money to clear the debts and sent the remaining amount to his family in India. He asked for additional time to repay the woman and suggested a monthly payment plan of SGD 1,500 (about Rs 96,000), though no funds have been recovered from him so far.
While reacting to the incident, a Reddit user said, “Dude used someone else’s money to pay off his debts and send the rest to India. Broke a law and got jailed for it. In India, he would have vanished and the poor guy who made a mistake would have to deal with police and law and never see a penny. Some mush brains are saying that is what happens in a dictatorship. Your comment is what happens when there is a lack of education.”
“How dumb was this guy? He thought the money wouldn’t be tracked to him?” asked another.
A third said, “People in comments defending the man are a perfect showcase of why India is the world capital of scammers and thieves. They have wet dreams about stealing other people’s money without consequences, but will come and whine on Reddit when they fall for scams themselves.”
“Such a valuable example of ‘your actions have consequences’,” commented a fourth.
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