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SINGAPORE — A 33-year-old unemployed man was at Mustafa Centre in Little India when he decided to switch the price tags on various items, in a bid to pay much less for them.
Among the items that Lewis Gay Shi Jie got was a S$578 food mixer, for which he paid S$56. He managed to save S$980 in total before being nabbed on his second attempt.
He was fined S$2,500 on Friday (July 17) after pleading guilty in a district court to two cheating charges.
The court heard that he first struck in the wee hours of July 5, 2018. He bought 14 items and left the shopping mall undetected.
He had replaced the price tags of two items — the food mixer, as well as a knife block valued at S$55. He managed to buy the second item for S$12.50 instead.
Mustafa staff realised the food mixer was missing later that day after doing a stock take. He was identified on closed-circuit camera footage.
When Gay returned on Aug 22, 2018, a plainclothes security officer at Mustafa recognised him. The officer was patrolling the second basement level of the mall at about 4am when he spotted Gay behaving suspiciously.
He saw Gay removing the price tag of a hairdryer valued at S$18.90, then pasting it over another price tag of a Panasonic hairdryer valued at S$155.
He then pasted the price tag of a S$29.90 iron over that of a Philips induction cooker valued at S$98.
The officer followed him to the cashier, where he paid for the items in his basket and left the mall. The officer then detained him and took him to the security office.
He checked Gay’s purchases and discovered that 14 out of the 17 items he just bought had price tags of lower values pasted over their original tags. These included a mooncake, two bars of chocolate and two radios.
Gay had placed the cheaper items back on the shelves, sans price tags.
He initially denied cheating, claiming that he was simply “lucky” to have found the items at such low prices.
In mitigation, Gay’s lawyer, Mr John Koh from Populus Law Corporation, said his client had picked up the food mixer “in a moment of folly” during the first occasion and replaced its tag.
Mr Koh, who sought a lower fine of S$2,000, noted that Mustafa did not suffer losses as Gay had made full restitution.
He was a first-time offender and his actions were “out of his usual behaviour”, the lawyer added.
For each cheating offence, Gay could have been jailed up to three years and fined.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...aved-s980-switching-price-tags-mustafa-centre
