Aug 17, 2010
Viet visitor on 'stealing spree'
<!-- by line --> By Khushwant Singh
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WITHIN 18 days here, a Vietnamese visitor filched 20 cell phones, and an assortment of MP3 players and cameras from unsuspecting victims. Nguyen Thi Lan, 47, nearly got away with it. She was only arrested on July 24 when she was about to board a flight home. She was jailed 10 months on Tuesday after she admitted to 21 theft offences and one count of fraudulent possession of stolen goods.
A district court heard that she stole the 20 cell phones and other gadgets as well as cash amounting to $1,360 and US$240 that were found on her at the airport. Police were able to trace the owners of eight cell phones, and from the footage of closed-circuit television in shops where Nguyen had committed the offence.
The owners of the other items could not be verified and Nguyen herself could not remember where she had stolen them. The short plump foreigner would frequent shopping centres and sidled up to her victims before unzipping their handbags or pouches of the backpacks to steal the cell phones and any items in there.
