Places of worship that collect offerings are a seemingly easy target for theft, due to how offering containers are often let out in the open for prolonged durations.
A temple in Bencoolen caught a man stealing money from their offerings box using a hand-made contraption of a ruler and double-sided tape on 11 Mar.
The man admitted to having continuously stolen money from the temple since Sep 2021.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
Police are currently investigating the matter.
Shin Min Daily News reported that people in the neighbourhood had informed the couple running the temple about a man.
He had apparently been going to the temple early in the morning to steal money from the offering boxes.
The Liu couple (transliterated from Mandarin) shared that their neighbours have been warning them to be more careful from around half a year ago.
Mrs Liu revealed that they had installed a close-circuit television and decreased the gap for money to be slotted in twice in order to stop the culprit.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
However, the culprit was able to make off with money despite the reinforcements.
This prompted Mrs Liu to check the CCTV footage on 10 Mar, where she realised a man who looked to be in his 60s would visit at around 6.30am in the morning to steal money.
The couple thus sat outside the temple pretending to be passers-by from 6am the next day, in hopes of catching the culprit red-handed.
On that day, Mr Liu told Shin Min Daily News they spotted a suspicious-looking man approaching the offerings box and glancing around him.
He thus approached the man from behind, and saw him fishing money out of the box, about to put it in his bag.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
The man used a long ruler with double-sided tape to grab onto the money and take it out.
Mr Liu thus grabbed onto the man, while Mrs Liu called the police.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the man did not put up a struggle, although he tried to explain his circumstances to convince the couple to not report him to the police.
He later admitted he had been stealing from the temple since Sep 2021.
The man allegedly did not know how much he had stolen since 2021, but he returned the couple S$500 after being accompanied by police to an ATM to withdraw money.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
Mrs Liu told Shin Min Daily News that temple staff only opens the offerings box every two to three months.
During the Covid-19 period, when the man started stealing, she had noticed that the temple received half as many donations as they normally did, but she just assumed that people were donating less as they had lost their jobs or simply went out less.
It apparently did not occur to her that someone had been stealing the money.
Shin Min Daily News reported the culprit as saying he had a wife and two teenage children in Indonesia.
He claimed that he resorted to stealing as he was jobless and ill.
He had apparently been mailing some 0f the stolen money back to his family while spending the remaining on 4-D tickets.
The Liu couple told Shin Min Daily News they felt bad for the man after hearing about his circumstances and offered him a job.
However, they were disappointed as the man said he could not work as his leg hurt.
Shin Min Daily News reports that police are currently investigating the matter, and a 66-year-old man is assisting with investigations.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News on Facebook.
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