Bukit Batok durian shop employee steals S$17,300 from safe & gambles it away, jailed for 5 months

Bukit Batok durian shop says former employee transferred customers’ payments into his account

The now-former employee of a durian shop in Bukit Batok reportedly stole S$17,300 from a safe and gambled it away,

26-year-old Malaysian Tan An Sheng was eventually jailed for five months, reported Shin Min Daily News.

Employee appears to turn off CCTV at Bukit Batok durian shop

In a Facebook post on 1 June, Top Durian Station informed customers that Tan was no longer working at its outlet in Block 154 Bukit Batok Street 11.

It shared CCTV footage of Tan at their stall, with the timestamp of 2.03pm on 12 April.

In the clip, he turned to touch something on the wall and the footage curiously cut to three minutes later.

A voiceover accused him of turning off the CCTV.

Bukit Batok durian shop says employee involved in multiple illegal activities

Top Durian Station said Tan was involved in “multiple serious illegal activities” during his employment.

This included stealing cash from the company’s safe and transferring payments from customers into his personal account.

He was also responsible for “repeated acts of dishonesty, fraud, and theft”, the shop added.

The matter has been referred to the police for further investigation.

Employee given safe passcode, steals S$17,300

According to court documents seen by Shin Min, Tan was tasked with taking over his supervisor’s duties while the latter was on leave from 18 to 22 Feb.

He was given the safe’s passcode for the first time, as he had to deposit the day’s earnings inside.

During this period, he was the only employee to have the passcode.

However, he stole a total of S$17,300 from the safe on two occasions between 20 and 22 Feb.

The first time, he took S$1,000 in the form of a stack of S$50 notes. He subsequently cleaned out the safe of the remaining S$16,300.

Tan proceeded to use the money to gamble at the Marina Bay Sands casino, hoping to win enough to repay loansharks, but he ended up losing every cent.

Police report made after customers say he borrowed money from them

Speaking to the Chinese daily, Top Durian Station boss Cai Mingyou (transliterated from Mandarin) said Tan had worked for him for about eight or nine months before the incident.

He was initially unaware that Tan had a gambling problem.

When the theft was uncovered, the company wanted to give him a chance to repay them by deducting the funds from his salary.

But about 50 customers showed up at the shop, saying that Tan had borrowed money from them.

Even after they decided to make a police report and he was arrested, more customers came to chase their debts.

Tan borrowed from several people in the vicinity

When reporters visited a nearby coffeeshop on Saturday (27 June), several stallholders and stall assistants said they had lent Tan money.

A 37-year-old fish soup stallholder said he had claimed he needed to pay a fine urgently. She lent him the money without even taking down his contact details as he “looked honest”, she added.

After not seeing him for a few days, she went to the durian shop and learnt that he had borrowed money from many others, with his largest loan amounting to S$1,000.

She has accepted that she won’t get her money back, and will not be lending money to people so readily in future.

Another creditor, 43-year-old Mr Feng (transliterated from Mandarin), said Tan had approached him saying he needed S$700 to pay two fines.

He lent him the money as he felt he should help out a “neighbour”, added the man, who runs a Vietnamese grocery shop.

Tan eventually returned him S$400 and promised to repay the rest when he received his salary — but he was then arrested.

“I didn’t make a police report, but I hope he can reflect on his actions,” Mr Feng remarked.

Tan sentenced to 5 months in prison

After Tan was arrested on 1 June, he was charged with one count of criminal breach of trust by an employee.

In mitigation, he told the court that he realised how serious his actions were and apologised for damaging the company’s business and reputation.

He also appealed for leniency by professing to be remorseful.

He was sentenced to five months in prison after prosecutors noted that he had voluntarily confessed to his crime and partially compensated the company.

Also read: Man allegedly steals durians from shop in Jurong East, owner makes police report

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Featured image adapted from Top Durian Station on Facebook.