The court has sentenced four foreign students to jail for shoplifting about S$1,800 worth of clothing from Uniqlo.
Aged between 20 and 26, the students from India received between 40 and 65 days of jail time.
They reportedly took advantage of the self-checkout system at the apparel store to facilitate their crimes.
The scheme was foiled during their second attempt in which they tried stealing about S$2,300 worth of clothes in a similar manner.
On Wednesday (22 Nov), the court sentenced four Indian nationals to jail for shoplifting goods worth about S$1,800 from the Uniqlo store in Orchard Central last month.
The four Indian nationals were in Singapore on student passes:
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the four of them were part of a group of six who were living in the same apartment.
The other two individuals were also involved in the crimes, but they left the country before investigations commenced, reported CNA.
Two others, namely Brahmbhatt Komal Chetankumar and Christian Arpita Arvindbhai, did not take their guilty pleas on Thursday (23 Nov).
Hence, they will be returning to court for pre-trial conferences later this month.
The group’s modus operandi involved taking advantage of the store’s self-checkout counters.
Source: Uniqlo, for illustration purposes only.
Some of them would choose what to steal, while others removed the price tags containing RFID chips.
Without the RFID chips, the store’s self-checkout system was unable to detect the items.
On 12 Oct, nine of the students went to the Uniqlo store in Orchard Central.
They placed the apparel in shopping baskets after removing the price tags and proceeded to the self-checkout counters.
There, they paid for tote bags that cost S$3.90 each, giving the impression that they had paid for every item in their shopping baskets.
The group then left the store about 1.5 hours later, stealing 64 pieces of goods amounting to about S$1,800.
Four days later on 16 Oct, another group of six attempted to steal using the same method.
Source: Uniqlo, for illustration purposes only.
However, a vigilant security guard foiled their plans when he asked them for their receipts.
One of them lied to the security guard that the receipt was with a friend elsewhere and walked away.
Another claimed they spotted their friend and walked away as well, leaving the tote bags with the stolen apparel behind.
A sales assistant then lodged an online police report.
After combing through surveillance footage, police identified the culprits and arrested them on 30 Oct.
Investigations showed that the second group had attempted to steal 72 pieces of clothes worth around S$2,300.
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