WILLEMSTAD - The former office manager of the Volunteer Corps Curaçao, VKC, was sentenced last week to a prison sentence of eighteen months, ten of which were suspended. The former treasurer had more than half a million guilders in almost three hundred transfers, booked to his own account.
The 44-year-old man C.B. did that to finance his gambling addiction. According to the judge, it was a bad thing that he had violated the trust of the organization and the community, which resulted in a higher sentence than demanded.
Account numbers
As an office manager, the man had to prepare and enter payments to VKC creditors. However, when processing these payments, he changed the account number of the creditors to his own bank account or that of a friend of his. By entering all other details correctly, it seemed as if he simply sent the money to the relevant creditors.
If one of the creditors came to ask about amounts that had not been transferred, these questions also reached him. In many cases, he transferred part of the amount due from his own account to prevent the organization from finding out about his actions.
The man kept that up for a long time until he was careless when sending an e-mail. One of the creditors had inquired why the money was transferred from his private account and not from the account of the VKC.
When the office manager wanted to send an e-mail to the creditor's employee, he clicked the wrong button and sent his e-mail to a VKC colleague who had the same surname as the creditor.
The VKC immediately launched an internal investigation and discovered that the office manager had stolen nearly 550,000 guilders from the organization. The man admitted to stealing the money from the VKC. He said he did this to solve the "annoying financial situation" he was in. The judge did not agree, because according to him it was clear that he used the money to gamble.
Fake invoice
In addition to the falsified transactions, it turned out during the trial that the man had also submitted a false invoice. He had been to the car dealership, Crown Automotives, to get a quote. He had cut off the top of the quotation to hide the fact that it was a quotation. Instead, he placed another company letterhead over the quote and made a copy of it.
When checking this document, it was quickly seen that something was not right. For example, at the top of the letter it was stated that it was an invoice and at the bottom of the letter that it was a quotation. In addition, the falsified invoice stated that the prices were estimated, something that would never be on an actual invoice from the company.