S$2.58m fraud spread over three years discovered at Swissco

THE new board at Swissco Holdings (Swissco) has discovered fraud by one of its senior employees totalling S$2.58 million over the last three years.

A female employee allegedly misappropriated this sum of money through her position as vice-president of finance at Swissco.

A senior spokesman of the group told The Business Times that Swissco discovered the fraud recently and has since proceeded to recover about S$900,000 from the accused. The group's senior management also filed a police report on Friday.

The company added that it would proceed to recover the remainder of the misappropriated amount.

"Preliminary investigations revealed that the employee had falsified company documents to direct payment of the misappropriated funds to her personal and family members' bank accounts," Swissco said in an announcement on Friday evening, without naming the employee.

Financial losses arising from the misappropriation, at S$1.68 million, are not expected to have an impact on the profit and net tangible assets of the group for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2014, Swissco said.

The company's shares traded at 53 Singapore cents, down 1.5 cents or 2.8 per cent, before the announcement.