Three male Chinese nationals, Huang Chunsheng, 50, Jiang Renjing, 55, and Zheng Jiansheng, 64, all pleaded guilty to a charge of theft and were sentenced to 8 months, 7 months and 10 months imprisonment respectively.
The trio had applied glue to their hands to steal gambling chips from the other customers at casinos in Singapore, making off with about $1,575 worth of chips before getting caught, according to The Straits Times.
Huang hatched a plan to steal chips before he travelled to Singapore in case he lost money while gambling here, and came up with the idea to apply strong glue to his palms so that he could pick up the gambling chips and hide them from the unsuspecting victims.
He then shared his idea with Jiang and Zheng while the three of them were still in China, and he then passed two bottles of strong glue to Sheng to avoid detection when travelling to Singapore.
Huang knew that Zheng had a medical condition where he had to apply eye drops every day to prevent an eye infection, and told him to say that the bottles were for his eyes if he was asked what they were for when coming to Singapore.
On 6 March, the trio arrived in Singapore and stayed at a Geylang hotel, before Huang taught his accomplices how to use their sticky, gluey hands to steal casino chips the next day.
They initially decided to divide the stolen loot equally among themselves but later decided that each of them would keep whatever amount of chips they stole.
From 6 to 11 March, the trio visited the Marina Bay Sands Casino on several occasions and split up upon reaching.
After using up all of their own chips, the trip went into the toilets and started putting the glue on their hands before returning to the casino floor, targeting the gamblers who had placed large bets using a whole stack of chips.
This was to make it harder for the victims to notice if some of their chips had gone missing.
Huang was caught red-handed in the act on 11 March when one of the patrons noticed one of his chips was missing after Huang placed his hand nearby, and the patron then grabbed Huang’s hand and found the gambling chip stuck to his hand.
The patron then reported the incident to the casino dealer but Huang then fled the scene, telling his accomplices that he can’t go back to MBS anymore, and suggested that they went to Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) instead.
However, before that, he wanted Jiang to go and encash the casino chips that he had stolen for money so as to fund his gambling at RWS.
The trip then visited the RWS casino on 11 March and they were then arrested.