Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The four female employees of TSM Mart in Tafuna accused of stealing from the company, admitted their wrongdoings to their employer and police. This is according to the government.

The four defendants: Kalameli Tauave, Faatamalii Atiae, Manaia Iopu, and Alofagia Alofipo were arrested earlier this week; and each is charged with stealing and embezzlement — both felonies.

THE CASE

It was June 21st that DPS Det. Filemoni Amituana’i was assigned to follow-up on allegations of stealing at TSM Mart.

According to the government, on May 26, 2019, an Operations Supervisor (OS) from TSM Mart who was balancing Tauave’s cash register at the end of her shift discovered that two transactions - totaling $928.90 - were deleted from the system.

The OS told police that he noticed earlier in the day, a couple of huge transactions being served through Tauave’s machine, but was surprised when he balanced the cash register later, and found that Tauave had deleted the aforementioned transactions.

The OS said he confronted Tauave inside the store, and Tauave admitted to manipulating the cash machine by using the supervisor’s access pin code to delete the two transactions from the system.

When interviewed at the DPS Tafuna substation, Tauave told police that Atiae gave her the supervisor’s access pin code to the cash machines within the supermarket.

The cash register system being used at TSM is the latest POS touchscreen model. This software can help monitor inventory, keep client history, and create purchase orders, among other things.

It also has a server that records all the sales entered on a daily basis.

When there is an error in a sales transaction, an access pin code is punched in to delete the error before the transaction can be re-entered.

In this case, the OS was the only person assigned an access pin code.

It was revealed during the course of the investigation, the constant use of the OS’s  access pin code number on Atiae’s cash machine to correct errors. Atiae was able to memorize the pin code, which she started using to delete sales transactions from her machine before taking cash out for her own personal use.

According to the government’s case, this practice has been ongoing since October 2018.

Atiae allegedly gave Iopu and Tauave the access pin code for the cash machines.

The owner of TSM conducted an audit of the business for the month of May 2019 as soon as the complaint was filed with police and discovered that about $46,278.10 has been stolen from company through the aforementioned scam by the suspects.

Atiae was interviewed by police on May 26th and she allegedly admitted to initiating the scam by obtaining the access pin code to the POS System. She also allegedly admitted to stealing thousands of dollars from TSM since October 2018, and sharing it with Iopu, Tauave, and Alefosio.

Atiae said that she, along with her 3 co-defendants, conspired to steal from the company because TSM doesn’t pay them enough and doesn’t pay them overtime hours.

Tauave, Alefosio, and Iopu, in their interviews with police, allegedly confirmed what Atiae has already stated - that they stole the money from the company and used it for personal reasons.

As of Wednesday, all four defendants were still in custody, unable to post a $10,000 surety bond.

A preliminary examination is set for July 12 at 11a.m.