Durian stall assistant steals $17,300 from employer, gambles it away at MBS casino

A durian stall assistant who was given the passcode to the shop's safe while covering for his supervisor during this year's Chinese New Year stole $17,300 from it. 

He later gambled away the entire amount at Marina Bay Sands casino, reported Shin Min Daily News on Saturday (June 27). 

The 26-year-old Malaysian Tan An Sheng pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to five months in jail. 

The incident happened at Top Durian Station, located at Blk 154 Bukit Batok Street 11. At that point, Tan had been working there for around nine months. 

As the stall's supervisor went on leave, Tan was assigned to temporarily take over the role.

He was given the safe's passcode for the first time and was responsible for tallying and reporting each day's earnings before depositing the money into the safe.

Tan later stole a total of $17,300 from the safe on two separate occasions. The first time, he took a stack of $50 bills amounting to $1,000, and the second time, he stole the remaining $16,300 of cash. 

He then went to the Marina Bay Sands casino and gambled, hoping to win enough money to repay his debts to loan sharks. However, he ended up losing everything. 

50 customers came to 'collect debts'

Tan later confessed his crimes to his supervisor on Feb 23 and also asked the supervisor to inform the company director. 

Speaking to the Chinese publication, Top Durian Station's director said that he did not know Tan had a gambling problem. 

"After the incident, the company originally intended to give him a chance and deduct the money from his salary as compensation," he said. 

But after repaying around $2,204, Tan started borrowing money from customers and neighbouring stall owners to feed his gambling addiction.

Top Durian Station's operator shared that around 50 of these customers came and demanded that Tan repay them. 

Even after the stall made a police report and Tan was arrested, people continued coming to the stall to look for him.

Several stall owners told Shin Min Daily News that they had lent money to Tan. 

[[nid:737897]]

[email protected]