Driver jailed for stealing 4,000 food cartons
Ronald Loh
Saturday, Nov 28, 2015
They collected $200,000 worth of chicken-flavoured seasoning, ikan bilis, Thousand Island dressing, mayonnaise and tom yum paste.
Mohaya Arwee and his three friends were not preparing a huge dinner. He had stolen these food items to sell. They were eventually caught and Mohaya, 51, a delivery driver, was jailed for 10 months yesterday.
His alleged accomplices, Mohammed Fazli Mohammed Shafiee, 34, Muhammad Abdul Hafiz Abd Matin, 31, and Ahmad Samat, 57, have their cases pending.
According to court papers, Mohaya and Ahmad were employed by Tan Brothers Logistics, which was contracted to provide delivery services for grocery supplier Lim Siang Huat - the company that Mohammed Fazli and Muhammad Abdul Hafiz were working for.
The four men got to know each other while working as delivery staff at a Lim Siang Huat warehouse in Jurong.
Last year, Mohammed Fazli and Muhammad Abdul Hafiz allegedly devised a plan to steal cartons of food products from the warehouse to sell for profit.
Mohaya knew of the shops they could sell the stolen goods to for a lower price.
Ahmad was allegedly roped in later.
Between September last year and July this year, the men allegedly carried out multiple heists at the warehouse and made off with more than 4,000 cartons of food products.
On each occasion, they would first discuss and agree on what items to take.
Mohaya would drive his company lorry to the warehouse at 7.50am - early enough to avoid detection by other workers - and meet his alleged accomplices there.
Mohammed Fazli would allegedly enter the warehouse with a trolley and load up cartons of food products.
Muhammad Abdul Hafiz is said to have acted as a lookout and used hand signals to Mohammed Fazli when the coast was clear.
According to court papers, Mohaya and Ahmad would load the food products onto the lorry, drive off and sell the items to various shops in Joo Chiat.
SPLIT CASH
Mohaya collected the money earned and split the cash with his three alleged accomplices.
Their offences came to light on July 13 after Lim Siang Huat's chief operations officer reported to the police that a large quantity of food products from the warehouse was missing.
The company was able to track down and recover only $9,350 worth of stolen goods from the various shops.
No restitution was made by Mohaya or the other three.
Yesterday, Mohaya appeared in court and pleaded guilty to one charge of misappropriating $212,120.57 worth of food products.
In mitigation, Mohaya, who was unrepresented, said he had not seen his foreign wife, who is overseas, since he was arrested and he asked for a lenient sentence.
He could have been jailed for up to two years and fined.
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