Neighbourhood thief found with 122 pairs of stolen footwear gets jail

SINGAPORE: While on a jog, a man noticed that there were many shoes left outside a condominium in Sengkang. He plotted to steal the footwear and sell them either online or back home in the Philippines.

Warren Vicente Canabe, a 41-year-old Filipino, was later found with 122 pairs of stolen footwear and arrested. 

He was sentenced to jail for 13 months and two weeks on Monday (Nov 4) after pleading guilty to 10 charges, mostly for stealing shoes in the Sengkang area. Another 20 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court heard that Canabe was jogging near La Fiesta Condominium in Sengkang in July when he noticed that many residents left their shoes outside the apartments.

He began stealing shoes about three to four times a week, intending to sell them on Carousell or in the Philippines, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Etsuko Lim.

He disguised himself with sunglasses, a cap, and carried a haversack with him to hide the stolen shoes in, occasionally stealing other items, including a MacBook and a kick-scooter.

He carried out the offences in under a month, starting with a pair of S$35 Adidas slippers on Jul 7 and moving on to Nikes and Timberland boots worth upwards of a hundred dollars until he was caught on Jul 31.

SET OUT TO STEAL SHOES, SOMETIMES STOLE OTHER ITEMS

On one occasion, he stole two pairs of Timberland shoes worth S$450 in total and a S$320 pair of Nike running shoes from a flat in Sengkang.

He had been "making his rounds" looking for shoes to steal when he saw the footwear on top of a shoe cabinet in the common corridor and filched them.

The owner filed a police report a few days later.

On another occasion, another victim had checked that all of his family's footwear outside his Sengkang flat were intact, before leaving for work.

However, when he returned home that night, he realised that his S$159 Onitsuka Tiger shoes and S$99 Pedro shoes were missing and filed a police report.

Canabe stole the priciest item, a S$2,505 MacBook Pro, on Jul 30.

He was walking around a block in Sengkang looking for shoes to steal when he walked past a flat and noticed the laptop on a table next to an open window by the common corridor.

He stretched his hand into the window, pulled the tablecloth towards him and stole the MacBook.

The victim similarly filed a police report.

The police caught up with Canabe on Jul 31 and conducted a search of his home. A total of 122 pairs of shoes were found that were reasonably suspected of being stolen, and Canabe could not account for how he got them.

He was placed under arrest.

The items seized during the search included a haversack, a MacBook, a kick-scooter, two storage boxes and 149 pairs of shoes.

For each charge of theft, Canabe could have been jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.

For fraudulent possession of property, he could have been jailed for up to a year, fined a maximum S$3,000, or both.

For housebreaking to commit theft of the MacBook, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years.