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Xing Cai
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Oct 7, 2010
Ex-civil servant jailed
By Elena Chong
THE personal assistant to the director of corporate communications in the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) went on shopping sprees with the debit cards he stole from two colleagues. Lawrence Tong, 37, who left the ministry in July after 10 years' service, was jailed a total of six months on Thursday on two charges of theft and three of cheating.
In all, he had bought goods worth about $1,000 using the two cards in May and July. Arrested on July 30, he surrendered all his spoils to the police. His 25-year-old colleague had gone to the police in May when she realised that $648 in unauthorised transactions had been made on her missing card.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jesintha Veijayaratnam told District Judge Low Wee Ping that Tong stole the card from her handbag at her workstation in MOM's Havelock Road office on May 17. He then went to the nearby OG People's Park department store and bought a $137 bottle of perfume with it. The next day, he used it again, this time to pay for a $199 blazer from G2000 in Plaza Singapura.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of the Straits Times.
