A woman who falsely amended payrolls and defrauded $5.7 million from the crypto exchange Bybit has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison by a Singapore court.
The Straits Times reported on Feb. 20 that Ho Kai Xin was handed a nine-year, 11-month sentence after she pleaded guilty to 44 charges, including five cheating charges along with eight counts of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct.
Ho committed the offenses while working at the crypto networking platform WeChain, which handled payroll for Bybit. Ho led the payroll team.
She was sentenced to six weeks behind bars late last month for contempt of court after she spent the ill-gotten funds despite the court ordering her otherwise.
Ho’s nearly 10-year sentence will start after she completes her current sentence, which started on Jan. 27.
Ho laundered over $4.3 million of the $5.7 million she stole, but Bybit managed to recover more than $1.1 million worth of stablecoin Tether (USDT) from her electronic wallets and over $140,000 from one of her bank accounts.
Police also managed to seize more than $330,000 worth of items from Ho, including a Mercedes-Benz car. Ho has reportedly not made any offers to repay the remaining amount to Bybit.
Source: Génération Crypto
Ho worked at WeChain from Oct. 20, 2021, to Oct. 6, 2022, and is believed to have first cheated for profit in May 2022.
“When her actions went undetected, the accused became emboldened, going on a cheating spree to drain her client company, Bybit, of its monies,” prosecutors reportedly told the court.
About nine months later, in February 2023, a Wechain representative informed the local police about Ho’s misconduct, which led to her arrest two months later.
How Ho did it
Ho carried out payroll processing for around 900 Bybit employees at the time and amended Microsoft Excel files to falsely reflect payments owed by Bybit to four crypto wallets that she owned.
She reportedly managed to send a total of $4.2 million to those accounts.
Ho would then convert the crypto into fiat currencies, which were then used to fund her lavish lifestyle, including placing a deposit of nearly $750,000 for a penthouse worth more than $3.7 million, according to The Straits Times.
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Bags, rings, shirts and shoes were also purchased from luxury brand Louis Vuitton, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court.
One of the 44 charges involved providing false information to a public servant.
When Ho was initially investigated, she told an officer that her cousin — “Jason Teo” — was responsible for the unlawful transactions.
Investigators later found out that Teo does not exist.
Ho’s lawyer, James Gomez, asked that she be given an eight-year and eight-month sentence, as she has two young children, arguing that “her actions were a lapse in judgment.
“She has since reflected deeply on the consequences they have had on her family, the victim and the justice system,” he reportedly told the court.
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