Manager behind $50,000 New World thefts faces court

A New World Rototuna checkout manager who stole almost $50,000 from the supermarket over several months used a range of fake refunds and transactions to obtain cash and goods, a court has heard.

Amandeep Kaur Singh pleaded guilty to representative charges of theft by a person in a special relationship and obtaining by deception when she appeared in Hamilton District Court on Tuesday, Waikato Times has reported. 

She is due to be sentenced in February.

Singh was employed as the supermarket’s checkout manager and had responsibility for eight supervisors and 55 checkout operators when her offending occurred between October 2023 and February 2024.

Her offending involved multiple forms of unauthorised refunds, including fake Gold Card and Club Card refunds, Rug Doctor and SodaStream refunds, cigarette, tobacco and alcohol refunds, fuel voucher and trailer hire refunds, staff discount and “mistake” refunds, as well as “jammed self-service transactions”, Waikato Times reported.

In many cases, the transactions should have required customer signatures to reconcile them. Instead, customers did not exist.

The transactions left the tills unbalanced by the amount of the refunds. Singh would then either remove cash from the till or issue a gift card for the relevant amount, which she kept for herself.

She also took promotional products and groceries, including MasterChef products, Waikato Times report mentioned. 

Singh began working at New World Rototuna in 2011 in the deli before moving to the checkout department the following year. She was promoted to checkout manager in 2016.

Her responsibilities included overseeing the day-to-day operation of the checkout area, managing cash and transactions, and “motivating staff to ensure the highest level of customer service," Waikato Times quoted.

Her employment was terminated on March 8, 2024.

Singh did not provide a statement to police but admitted the offending during an internal disciplinary hearing with New World management and apologised for her actions.

She said she initially carried out the thefts once a week, telling the hearing that she started doing it “and no-one found out, so she did more”.

New World Rototuna owner Suresh Chimanlal said several weaknesses in the supermarket’s systems had allowed Singh’s offending to continue undetected.

There had been “a few failures in our systems” which had since been addressed, he told Waikato Times.

Chimanlal said Singh had “ruled the roost with certain other staff members” and had an “I’m the manager, I know what I’m doing attitude”.

“It was just an abuse of her power, really," Waikato Times quoted.

He said he and other senior staff “will probably have a bit more to say once she is sentenced”.

“There’s been a bit of heartache over this.”

Singh’s offending bears similarities to an earlier case involving a senior employee at the same supermarket.

In 2017, former store supervisor Rajwinder Kaur, also known as Nikki Kaur, was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention after stealing more than $125,000 worth of tobacco and cigarettes from the supermarket.

Kaur took the stolen goods to her husband Kevin Sohal’s business, the Fairfield Bridge Dairy on River Rd, where they were put on sale.