It was reported that a Malaysian engineer Soh Jun Sheng, who is a Singapore Permanent R, was sentenced to two years’ jail by the court today (18 Feb). He was found guilty of stealing computer equipment from the government agency, Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA).
He was employed by the government-linked company NCS in March last year – the same company which was involved in the recent IT error at Ministry of Health (MOH), resulting in wrong CHAS subsidies being dispensed to 7,700 patients.
Soh’s job was to provide IT support to IMDA as directed by the NCS service desk, issuing or changing laptops for IMDA employees. He was given access to a few secure rooms in IMDA, where computers and accessories were kept, and decided to steal from these rooms to pay off his gambling debts.
Within weeks of providing IT support to IMDA, Soh stole:
- 6 iPads
- 6 Lenovo monitors
- 30 Lenovo ThinkPad laptops
- 17 docking stations
- 80 Lenovo power adaptors
- 25 laptop bags
- 32 Lenovo mice
In all, $62,000 worth of computer equipment were stolen. Soh then tried to sell them in the open market to get cash. Eventually, the theft was discovered and a police report was made. He was arrested in June.
Investigations revealed that he had sold several of the stolen items on Carousell under his username “1sell2buy”, earning about S$28,000.
In mitigation, his lawyer said Soh has a gambling disorder. He would frequent the casinos to gamble.
An interesting note is that Soh apparently, stole from IMDA last year while he was still on court bail for breaking into a house in Chiselhurst Grove to steal $4,650 worth of electronic items on Nov 16, 2017, the year before.
That means to say, NCS recruited him in March last year, while he was still a burglary suspect in the Chiselhurst Grove case.
