penang boleh!

i’m sure you guys had came across this news on 28 sept. re: cheque scam which happened in penang. can you believe that? RM3 million siphoned off right under the penang state government’s nose. the beginning of the report says:

the penang government has lost RM3mil. from its account in a bank through counterfeit state state cheques banked into accounts of individuals and companies in the klang valley since early this month.

it seems that this RM3 million was part of 500 cheques worth RM4 million issued (supposedly) by the state. at press time yesterday, it was reported they had discovered RM3 million being paid out, so who knows soon, they might discover another RM1 million being paid out too, which means to say the state government would be coned of RM4 million!

how could this had happened? do you think this could be partly an inside job? well another report here says that the police would be questioning officers from the treasury dept. and also officers from the banks which handled these counterfeit cheques. it seems that these counterfeit cheques being paid out happened a month ago… and all along those issuing banks did not discover any discrepancies…. until last saturday one bank notice the same serial no. on 2 cheques.

as mentioned there were 500 counterfeit cheques. as i’m not working in the bank (nor am i an accountant) i don’t know about how the issuance/clearing of cheque works. if these 500 cheques are counterfeits, and when they were cashed, won’t the state treasury (who issued the cheques) noticed? i mean wouldn’t they be suspicious that money were cashed for cheques they didn’t issue?