A stall in Geylang, Singapore suffered huge financial losses after a thief made off with 10 donation boxes which contained more than S$20,000 (approx. RM63,000).
According to Shin Min Daily News, the manager of the stall got a call from one of her staff regarding the theft at around 4am on June 14.
Not the first time
According the manager named Zhu (transliteration), she told Shin Min that the donations were for several non-profit organisations, including the Buddha of Medicine Welfare Society, the Singapore Chung Hwa Medical Institution, and the Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic.
She also revealed that this wasn’t the first time donations had been stolen, with the first incident taking place 10 years ago.
“After that theft, I added some features to make the boxes more secure and spent close to S$3,000 (approx. RM9,400) on customised steel structures.
“I also ensured that the boxes were kept indoors every night after closing.”
Unwell staff forgot vital step
Despite Zhu’s best efforts, it all came undone when a staff, who was in charge of closing up and was reportedly unwell at the time, forgot to keep the boxes inside on June 13.
The staff later apologised profusely to Zhu for the costly mistake and was said to have expressed guilt over the theft.
According to Zhu, the total estimated amount in the boxes was between S$20,000 and S$30,000, as each box usually contained between S$2,000 and S$3,000 when each non-profit organisation collected the donations once a month.
She also expressed frustration, saying that she felt responsible for letting so many organisations be affected by the theft.
“I don’t understand why people would even steal charity donations. And we were always so careful. Just this once we slipped up, and the money was stolen.”
Avoiding detection
Zhu added that she believes the thief had planned the heist beforehand and took advantage of the blind spots of the shop’s CCTV cameras.
She also said the thief’s movements went unnoticed by internal CCTV cameras as the theft took place after all the stalls were closed.
An employee at the coffee shop informed Zhu that one of the trolleys used to collect used bowls and plates had vanished, leading her to suspect that the thief had used it to whisk the boxes away.
Police are currently probing the case.
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