Public spiritedness award for man who foiled in-flight theft
Mr Helmi Ali was on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore on May 16 when he noticed something was amiss.
A man was rifling through a “very executive-looking” bag that had been stowed in the overhead luggage compartment, as if searching for something.
“I thought it was odd already because the bag didn’t look like it belonged to him, but I didn’t want to confront him without evidence,” said the 41-year-old legal recruiter.
His suspicions were confirmed when the man left the plane without the bag upon landing.
After identifying the bag’s owner and finding a credit card missing from the bag, the pair chased down the man, leading to his eventual arrest.
Mr Helmi was presented with a public spiritedness award by the police on May 30 for his role in the incident.
Mr Helmi was sitting in the same row as the man during the flight, and observed that the man had hurriedly gone to the toilet after rummaging through the bag.
When he saw that the man had left the plane without the bag after landing, he approached the bag’s owner and asked him to check it for valuables.
The owner immediately cancelled his missing credit card, said Mr Helmi.
The pair then caught up with the man at a security bag check area in the airport.
Mr Helmi told airport security what he had seen, the police were called, and the 30-year-old man was arrested for theft.
The offence of theft carries a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.
In a statement by the police on May 31, commander of the airport police division AC M Malathi thanked Mr Helmi for his “unwavering commitment to keeping our airports safe”.
She added that the airport police will continue to work with airlines to keep passengers, cabins and aircrafts safe and secure.
Asked how he felt about the accolade, Mr Helmi said: “I just want to let people know not to leave their valuables in compromising places.
“You read about this stuff in the papers, but when it’s happening right in front of your eyes, you have to do something.”
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