A female staff member of the Divine Word University Administration was arrested and charged with thirty-nine (39) counts of stealing by false pretence and another thirty counts (39) counts of misappropriation of over K400,000.00, belonging to Divine Word University in Madang.
Mrs Florence Roberta Airegi Castro-Sale of Tinganalom village, Kokopo District, East New Britain Province was reported to the National Fraud & Anti-Corruption Directorate (NFACD) by the Divine Word University, Administration alleging misappropriation of funds over K700, 000.00 belonging to the University.
Upon receipt of the complaint, NFACD commenced investigation into the allegations made which revealed that Mrs. Florence Roberta Airegi Castro-Sale whilst being employed by Divine University as Data Entry Officer / Accounts Payable, deliberately posted the duplicate claims to different account codes instead of the appropriate account code for Tuition Fee Refund.
The alleged perpetrator manipulated the System on different dates & time through altering the name (description) of the student by adding characters, rearranging Initials, first name & surname back to front and vice versa to avoid a match in the system, which would have been rejected.
The duplicate cheques were then brought to the signatories for signing. It was quite difficult for the signatories of the account to suspect anything because the unsigned cheques were accompanied with genuine (approved) documents and most cheques were Pay Cash and not by payee’s name.
After signing, she then at different dates and time cashed the cheques whilst she deposited some genuine payments. She then misused other genuine and duplicate cheques. Through this scheme, she cashed a total of 112 fraudulent cheques over the Bank counter and walked away with K423, 587.00 money belonging to Divine Word University by abusing the school (DWU) policy and system of Students Tuition Refund.
She was interviewed at Jomba Police Station, Madang and after the interview and completion of arrest and charge procedures, she was later detained at Jomba Police Station cells and will appear before the Madang District Court this week.
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