Airport technician jailed for misusing staff pass to buy duty-free items

SINGAPORE: A technician working at Changi Airport misused his staff pass in order to buy duty-free items at a discounted rate, for the purpose of reselling them online.

For his crimes, Chinese national Wang Chong, 23, was sentenced to three weeks' jail and fined S$8,000 on Wednesday (May 29).

Wang was a technician with logistics company Beumer Group, and worked at the Terminal 4 baggage sorting area in Changi Airport.

As part of his job, Wang was issued an Airport Seasonal Pass, which allowed him to enter restricted areas only for official duties or business.

He broke this rule by going into restricted areas for non-work purposes more than 40 times between March and November last year.

During that period, Wang used his pass to enter the departure transit area in Terminal 2 eight times, even though he was not on official business.

There, he bought cosmetics, bags and food at a 10 per cent staff discount.

He then sent the items to a friend in China to sell online for profit.

For every item sold, Wang earned S$20, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Lee Zu Zhao.

"His actions were borne out of greed to earn more money," said the prosecutor.

He was arrested after someone tipped off a senior investigation officer at the airport police division that Wang had misused his airport pass on 48 occasions.

Wang pleaded guilty to eight counts of failure to comply with direction in a protected area, with another 40 similar charges were taken into consideration.

For each charge, he could have been jailed for up to two years, fined a maximum of S$1,000, or both.