6 months’ jail for engineer who took 84 Wi-Fi routers worth S$36,000, sold them online to fund gambling habit

SINGAPORE — For about six months, field engineer Yeo Kok Peng who was entrusted to install Wi-Fi routers meant for Singtel's internet service customers took the gadgets for his own use.

He sold them online and used the proceeds to gamble.

On Thursday (Sept 5), the 50-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to six months’ jail after pleading guilty to criminal breach of trust.

Another charge of criminal breach of trust as an employee involving a different company was taken into consideration during sentencing.

WHAT HAPPENED

Court documents showed that Yeo was contracted to Infinity Network Solutions (INS) between January 2018 and March 2022.

The company, specialising in the installation and maintenance of telecommunication networks, was contracted by telecommunications firm Singtel at the time to install equipment such as Wi-Fi routers for Singtel’s customers.

Field engineers such as Yeo would be tasked to take out such equipment from the company’s storeroom for installation. 

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Samuel Chew said in court documents that the engineers were also allowed to take out “buffer” equipment for convenience, in case they received more assignments over the course of a day.

The withdrawals of the equipment were tracked through INS' online system. 

"Thereafter, field engineers would update the system with the serial numbers of equipment that were installed. Any unused ‘buffer’ stock was to be returned to INS,” DPP Chew added.

During an inventory check, a project manager at INS discovered that Yeo failed to account for routers withdrawn from the storeroom between October 2021 and March 2022. The project manager made a police report in June 2022.

Yeo admitted during investigations that he sold online the "buffer" routers he took from the store room.

Each of the 84 routers he took were valued at either S$456 or S$312, depending on the model, adding up to S$35,856.

“The accused sold the routers and gambled the proceeds away,” DPP Chew said.

Yeo made a voluntary restitution of S$1,000 and INS also withheld salary payment to Yeo of S$5,200 as compensation for the routers.

Seeking a jail term of between five and seven months, DPP Chew described Yeo’s conduct as “persistent” and involving a high degree of premeditation.

The prosecution also noted that Yeo committed another criminal breach of trust offence while he was being investigated for the one he committed at INS.

Between September and October last year, he misappropriated more than S$3,000 in cash from another company where he was employed. This was the subject of the charge taken into consideration.

For each count of criminal breach of trust, Yeo could have been sentenced to jail of up to seven years or fined, or both.