A woman who defrauded Bybit out of more than $4 million in crypto, and spent the ill-gotten gains on luxury items, has been jailed for almost 10 years.
Ho Kai Xin, who's from Singapore, worked for a company called Wechain Fintech, which handled payroll processing on behalf of the crypto exchange.
The 32-year-old manipulated Excel spreadsheets to show USDT payments were due to digital wallets she controlled, when no money was owed. Millions were then transferred over a three-month period in 2022.
Ho spent the haul on Louis Vuitton handbags and sunglasses as well as a Mercedes-Benz.
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According to The Straits Times, prosecutors also alleged she placed a $560,000 deposit on a multimillion-dollar penthouse.
The court was told Ho became emboldened after her initial embezzlement went undetected, and linked her crypto addresses to the names of other employees.
Her fraudulent transfers were uncovered in September 2022, when an executive at the company she worked for noticed unusually large sums on the spreadsheet.
That following month, Bybit had secured an order to freeze Ho's assets, but she disobeyed the court by continuing to lavishly spend the stolen funds.
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In January of this year, she was given a six-week sentence for contempt of court.
Ho has now been jailed for a further nine years and 11 months after pleading guilty to more than a dozen charges. The new sentence will begin once her current one expires.
Once arrested, Ho allegedly lied to detectives by saying that a fictitious cousin called "Jason Teo" had been responsible for these unlawful transfers. It took police more than 140 hours to determine that he didn't exist.
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Defense attorney James Gomez had asked the judge to impose a lighter sentence of eight years and eight months, because she's the mother of two young sons.
"Her actions were a lapse in judgment, and she has since reflected deeply on the consequences they have had on her family, the victim and the justice system," he said during the trial.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
