42 months' jail for Woodlands wet market stall supervisor who pocketed S$734,000 from cash sales over 3 years

Source: TODAY

SINGAPORE -- The supervisor of a pork meat stall at a Woodlands wet market pocketed about S$734,000 from cash sales over a period of more than three years.

On Friday (May 24), Sun Chao, a 39-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced to 42 months' jail for his offences, which took place from 2019 until April 2022.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust, with another two for related offences being taken into consideration during sentencing.

At the time of his offences, Sun was working for JMS Trading and Supplies at a pork meat stall at a wet market located at Block 678A Woodlands Avenue 6.

He starting working for the company in 2013, and was appointed as a supervisor in 2017.

The stall was heavily reliant on cash transactions, with the proceeds of its daily sales kept in a locked drawer at the stall.

Sun's task was to tally up all the proceeds and pass them to another company representative for collection at about 1pm each day.

However, on repeated occasions between Jan 1, 2019 to April 30, 2022, Sun would misappropriate some of the cash from the sales proceeds before it was kept in the drawer and handed over.

Court documents showed that from Jan 1, 2019 to Dec 31, 2019, he misappropriated around S$195,970.68.

He misappropriated another S$369,696.64 from January to December of 2020.

These sums formed the basis for the charges to which Sun pleaded guilty.

Sun had also misappropriated S$156,060.97 in 2021 and a further S$13,125 in the period up to April 2022. These two sums formed the basis for the charges taken into consideration.

On May 31, 2022, a JMS director, Mr Choy Meng Kiat Michael lodged a police report against Sun for his offences.

Court documents did not disclose how his offences came to light, or why he was able to get away with his offending for so long.

So far, Sun has paid back S$40,000 of the money he took.

On Friday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Koh Yi Wen sought a sentence of 42 to 48 months' jail, saying that Sun was "motivated by greed" and as a stall supervisor, he had "exploited loopholes" in the system in order to steal the cash.

For each count of criminal breach of trust, Sun could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.