Pharmacy Owners Conned Millions of Dollars by “Friendly” Bookkeeper

A family-owned pharmacy was facing some tough times back in 2011 and a family “friend” offered a helping hand. A hand, that went on to steal millions of dollars from them for almost seven years.

Four Years, Eight Months Jail Time

Although reports differ on the exact amount, with some stating north of AU$3 million (approx. US$2.13 million), others reporting around AU$2 million (approx. US$1.42 million) the amount is still astounding. This is the money that was stolen by a 65-year-old woman from her friends – a family that owns a pharmacy in Northbridge, Perth – over a seven-year period of time.

The conwoman’s name is Moe Moe Myint Kelly and her appearances in court for her wrongdoings started in 2018 when local ABC News reported she’d be “pleading not guilty”. However, the owners of the Busy Bee Pharmacy – Wolfgang Wimmer and his wife, Diana Quan – have seemingly come on top, since the decision on the case sees Kelly sentenced to four years and eight months in jail. The latest ABC News report on the matter suggests that April 2025 is looking like the earliest time Kelly can be released, as for the first two years and eight months she’s not up for parole.

Story of Betrayal, Deceit

Wolfgang and Diana were more than happy when Kelly expressed her readiness to help the family with their accounting and bookkeeping for free during the tough years the family business was seeing at that time, around 2011. The family was reported working “easily over 100 hours” by ABC News and was facing difficulties making payments to employees at the time.

So, when Kelly appeared as a friend who was also willing to help them out for free, the Busy Bee owners accepted and put their trust in Kelly’s hands. Kelly would count the cash at the end of the day and put the numbers in a banknote to deposit to the bank. However, as it turns out, she would simply steal the money on hundreds of occasions, and only deposit amounts into the business account of the family on the instances she didn’t steal all of it.

Not only did Wolfgang and Diana got conned by a friend, but it was also during a time when the family was already facing tough times with their small business which makes Kelly’s actions even more condemning. Furthermore, Kelly has been reported as gambling the stolen money away, on multiple occasions, in Crown’s Perth Casino, with reports suggesting north of AU$1 million (more than US$700,000) being lost by Kelly’s gambling for roughly the same period when she was conning her friends. And, even worse than that, all reports agree on a conversation that Kelly has had with the family when confronted by Wolfgang about the missing money, in which Kelly has admitted to stealing, but also lied about giving the money away to charities in Burma.

The family states they’ve lost so many years of their lives, thanks to Kelly’s deceit, and were close to financial ruin as a result, and sentencing the wrongdoer to four years and eight months of jail time might seem downright unfair to those sympathetic to their struggles. However, at the very least, justice was served in the end, regardless of Kelly’s and her attorney’s attempts to paint a picture of Kelly who was the victim of the circumstances.