24-year-old swab assistant Audrey Sau, and the site manager of a Covid-19 test centre, Deng Xiangying, had misappropriated more than $14,000 worth of antigen rapid test (ART) kits from the test centre where they were working at.
They then sold some of the ART test kits on Carousell for a profit.
The two did this between September to October 2021, after they found out that the Tekka quick test centre in Little India, had over-ordered the text kits by accident from the Health Promotion Board.
Sau assisted Deng in misappropriating the additional 103 boxes of ART kits to cover up the mistake, which was worth about $14,162.50.
Sau was sentenced to 2 weeks imprisonment on 17 January after pleading guilty to a charge of dishonest misappropriation of property, and another charge under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.
Deng had already been dealt with, she was sentenced to 3 weeks imprisonment back in November for her crimes.
Background
Sau was working as a swab assistant in September 2021, at the Tekka quick test centre, which provided supervised Covid tests.
On 19 September 2021, Deng realised that the centre had ordered more kits than needed from the HPB by accident due to a miscalculation.
Worries that she and Sau would get into trouble, the two brought the extra kits home, with Sau taking 2 cartons worth of ART test kits with her.
One of their colleagues helped them to carry a third carton out and loaded it into a van that was driven by Deng’s sister.
Deng and Sau then later realised that they could sell the kits on Carousell for money, and they sold 44 boxes to 19 customers between 29 September to 1 October.
Each box was sold for between $100 to $140, and they made a profit of $5,363.70.
A police report was then lodged on 1 October 2021 after the authorities were alerted to what they were doing, and the remaining 59 boxes of kits were recovered.
They were then ordered to compensate the HPB for the ART kits that they had illegally sold.