A housekeeping staff of Fairmont Hotel at Bras Basah, 50-year-old Malaysian Saravanan Kannan from Malaysia, pleaded guilty on 13 July to theft and was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment.
He had stolen almost $5,000 in cash that was packed inside red packets ad kept inside a safe box of the guest’s hotel room.
The money was reportedly meant for the victim’s son, who was holding his wedding at the hotel.
What happened?
The victim, 60-year-old Kuo Mei-Yi, flew into Singapore from Taiwan on 24 April to attend her son’s wedding.
She had put about $20,000 of cash in Singapore and Taiwanese dollars inside the safe of the hotel room, inside 4 red packets.
Saravanan had entered the victim’s room on 26 April at about 1pm to clean and tidy up the room, when he noticed that the safe box was unlocked, and he saw the red packets inside.
He looked through the red packets and found the cash inside them, before taking some of the cash, which amounted to almost $5,000.
Saravanan then changed $1,100 of the cash into Malaysian Ringgit and spent it in Malaysia.
When the victim returned to her room, she noticed that her safe box was unlocked but didn’t feel suspicious because she saw that the red packets were still there.
Gave son ang pao of $7,401
She then gave the first red packet to her son during the wedding reception later that night, and her son’s wife then called her later asking why she packed $7,401 inside the red packet, which she (the daughter-in-law) found weird.
The victim then realised that it was not the amount that she had packed inside the red packet, and she then checked the remaining red packets that she kept inside the safe.
She then found about NT$50,000 (or SGD$2340) missing from the 2nd ad 3rd red packets, and she then reported the theft to the hotel’s security, as well as the police.
Saravanan was then questioned and he lasted admitted to stealing the money.
About SGD$1,500 and NT$50,000 was retrieved from him and returned to the victim, with the remaining $1,100 being deducted from the his salary and returned to her from the hotel’s management.