A 33-year-old man, Muhammad Fariz Shaik Sha Marican, scammed his employer out of more than SGD24,000 (US$17,950) by forging over 460 Grab receipts and false timesheets.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to two charges of forgery, with two additional charges to be considered during sentencing. Deputy Public Prosecutor Kelly Ng stated that Fariz was employed by the recruitment agency Persolkelly (PSK), which partnered with Ministry of Health (MOH) to provide staffing.
In November 2021, PSK assigned Fariz as temporary support staff for MOH’s Covid-19 operations. By April 2023, as MOH considered making him a permanent staff member, they reviewed his annual leave balance.
Following this review, both PSK and MOH filed police reports, leading to an investigation that revealed Fariz had forged Grab receipts on 228 occasions from July 2022 to April 2023.
He digitally altered dates and times on existing receipts for rides he never took, submitting them to PSK and obtaining over SGD9,500 in fraudulent reimbursements.
Additionally, between July 2022 and April 2023, he forged his supervisor’s signature on timesheets, falsely claiming overtime, resulting in SGD7,700 in fraudulent payments.
The fraud was exposed in April 2023 during MOH’s review of his leave records, which revealed discrepancies between PSK and MOH in timesheets and transport claims. Fariz confessed in a letter and resigned before his arrest in July 2023.
The prosecutor requested a six to eight-month jail term, highlighting the calculated nature of his actions.
“Each time the accused forged a receipt or timesheet, he had to put in the deliberate effort of altering it digitally or filling it up with extra days or hours, and each time he did this, he had the opportunity to stop his offending. Instead, he did not do so,” said the prosecutor.
