A Malaysian husband and wife have been sentenced to jail in Singapore after breaking into a beauty salon six times and stealing almost RM49,000.
The couple committed the offences to repay their debts.
Both sentenced to 20 months in jail
According to Shin Min Daily, the accused are 28-year-old Ye Qi Feng (transliteration) and her 36-year-old husband, Liu Wei Zhe(transliteration), both Malaysians.
They pleaded guilty to one consolidated charge of housebreaking and theft in a Singapore court last week.
Each of them was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
Wife used knowledge from former job
The victim is Ye’s former employer, who operates a beauty salon at The Bencoolen in Singapore.
Ye had worked there as a beautician and resigned in May last year.
During her time at the salon, she handled customer cash payments.
She was familiar with the shop layout and how money was kept.
Husband faced serious debts
Court documents stated that Liu had been facing financial difficulties since last year.
He owed money to licensed moneylenders in Singapore, illegal loan sharks in Malaysia, as well as credit card debts and loans from relatives and friends.
To ease their financial burden, the couple decided to target Ye’s former workplace.
key secretly duplicated
Before the thefts began, Ye returned to the salon to visit her former colleagues.
During the visit, she took a colleague’s key and passed it to her husband to make a duplicate.
She later returned the original key without raising suspicion.
Six break-ins within one month
The offences took place on Dec 10, 18, 24, 28 and 31, 2025, and Jan 8, 2026.
Ye wore dark clothing, a mask and gloves.
She used the duplicated key to enter the salon, took cash from the register, then locked the shop before leaving.
Liu waited outside to keep watch.
After each incident, they returned home and threw away the gloves and masks used during the break-ins.
Nearly RM43000 stolen and not recovered
In total, the couple stole S$13,950 (approx RM43,000) from the salon.
The stolen money was deposited into Ye’s bank account and later used to repay debts and cover personal expenses.
On Jan 8, the salon owner realised cash was missing and checked the CCTV footage. She identified Ye as the suspect.
Earlier thefts were not detected because the CCTV system had malfunctioned.
Both were arrested on the same day.
The stolen money was not recovered, and no compensation has been made to the victim.
The salon owner told Shin Min Daily that Ye had worked for her since she was 19 years old and described the incident as unfortunate.
