Supervisor jailed for stealing 46 luxury watches from duty-free shop
A senior supervisor with Changi Airport's duty-free shop misappropriated $1.3 million worth of luxury watches and pawned them for about $490,000, a district court heard yesterday.
To cover his tracks, Tan Wei Shen, 32, would indicate in the shop's stock-count list that the watches had been sent out to the service centre for repairs.
He was sentenced to five years and eight months behind bars yesterday for criminal breach of trust. He also faced six charges of disposing of the items by pawning them at pawnshops.
Tan stole the watches between December 2015 and June last year when he was working for Shilla Travel Retail at a Maison De Chromus shop in Changi Airport's Terminal 3.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Vikneswaran Kumaran said Tan misappropriated the watches (one Chopard, 16 Jaeger-LeCoultre, six IWC, three Piaget, 12 Breguet and eight Blancpain) over the six-month period.
He pawned them at two pawnshops.
In June last year, a retail manager of the shop became suspicious when he discovered a shortfall of Breguet watches.
When he confronted Tan on June 17 the same year, Tan admitted to misappropriating the watches and was arrested.
He claimed that he spent most of the money on gambling. Forty-five watches were recovered.- THE STRAITS TIMES
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