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Date Masamune
Guest
Mar 18, 2011
Trio stole $164k of vintage wines
By Elena Chong
TWO teens broke into a wines and spirits distributor and got away with eight bottles of vintage wine worth $164,058 while their accomplice acted as a look-out, a court heard.
Leonard Lim Wei Jye, 18, pleaded guilty to housebreaking and theft of the wines with Lai Kwok Fong and Nicklaus Yeo Jun Howe, both 17, at Cornerstone Building in Lorong 17 Geylang on July 30 2010.
Lai, who had previously worked at CornerStone Wines, is now undergoing 24 months' probation for theft of wines from the company.
A Community Court heard that the trio met at about 8pm that day and proceeded to Hock Tong Bee in Geylang to steal wines from the company.
Lim and Lai climbed over the rear fence into the company while Yeo waited at the back. Lai keyed in the access pin code and entered a room where the expensive wines were kept.
Both stole the eight bottles which were sold by Lai for $8,000.
He gave $2,000 to Lim and $1,000 to Yeo. All the eight bottles had been recovered.
Yeo was not charged but given a conditional warning by the police.
The court called for a probation report on Lim on April 28.
