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Technician jailed for stealing laptops, hard drives from SIA Engineering
Chinnavan Tamilarasan was sentenced to nine months’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of theft in dwelling and another charge of housebreaking.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
Published Jun 16, 2026, 07:35 PM
Updated Jun 16, 2026, 09:12 PM
www.straitstimes.com
SINGAPORE – A technician in an engineering company, who had found himself in a difficult financial position, came up with a plan to steal laptops from SIA Engineering Company.
On June 16, Chinnavan Tamilarasan, 32, was sentenced to nine months’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of theft in dwelling and another charge of housebreaking.
Court documents show that Chinnavan, an Indian national, was working for a local engineering company and was deployed to SIA Engineering’s office in Changi at the time.
As part of his job, he had been given access to a server room to service the air-conditioning system.
On Jan 9, Chinnavan decided to carry out his plan to steal laptops from the server room to sell for cash.
While servicing the air-conditioning system, he took two new laptops worth US$2,699.20 (about S$3,475) and hid them in the server room’s false ceiling.
The next day, he decided to collect the stolen laptops but knew he could not enter the server room using his access card as the entry would be recorded in the system if he did so.
So Chinnavan used an electrical test pen to tamper with the control box outside the room, successfully unlocking the door.
He then entered the room, collected the two stolen laptops, hid one inside his locker and put the other in a black trash bag before carrying it out of the Changi office.
Later that day, Chinnavan met his uncle at International Business Park in Jurong East and handed over the second laptop as he needed his uncle’s help to keep it safely and reset its password.
His uncle did not know that the laptop was stolen.
On Jan 12, a manager from SIA Engineering realised that two laptops were missing and questioned Chinnavan, who denied knowing their whereabouts.
That evening, Chinnavan returned to the Changi office with the intention of breaking in. He brought along an electrical test pen to gain access to the server room again.
To evade the security guards stationed at the main entrance, he jumped over a fence and entered the office.
Once he had entered the office, he unlocked the server room using the same method and pulled out a tray containing 16 hard disk drives of unknown value.
He was caught by the security guard, who found him after he exited the server room, and was detained. The police were called and officers recovered one laptop and the 16 hard disk drives from Chinnavan.
The second laptop was also eventually recovered from his uncle.
