Vietnamese gang's shoplifting spree foiled
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 22 August 2011 1815 hrs
SINGAPORE: To beat shoplifting alarm systems, a gang of four Vietnamese lined handbags with aluminium foil so their loot could be smuggled out undetected from Orchard Road shops.
It had been reported online that such a technique could outsmart the alarms.
Over two days during the Great Singapore Sale, the quartet managed to shoplift more than S$9,000 worth of items, mainly clothes from downtown boutiques.
They were each sentenced to 12 weeks' jail in a district court on Monday after pleading guilty to three shoplifting charges. Five other counts were taken into consideration during sentencing.
The group, made up of three women and a man, arrived in Singapore on July 27 and started stealing almost immediately after checking into a Geylang budget hotel.
As planned, the only man in the group, 24-year-old Le Van Ngoan, would wait outside shopping malls with a large bag while two of his accomplices, Le Thi Hang and Le Thi Nogc, both 33 years old, stole items on display inside the stores by slipping them into their specially prepared handbags. The two women would then pass the loot to him.
The fourth member of the group, Tran Thi Hong Nhung, 24, acted as a lookout.
All four were arrested during an anti-crime operation the next day after police spotted them in action outside Ngee Ann City shopping mall. Officers accompanied them to their hotel where another bag of stolen items was recovered.
The group had stolen more than 70 items in all. They include about 40 pieces of clothing worth more than S$5,400 from the Zara boutique at ION shopping mall.
-CNA/ac
