Jail for woman who stole S$10,800 in Budget grocery vouchers to buy and resell mobile phones, laptop

SINGAPORE — Using clothes hangers as hooks, a married couple went to the letterboxes at their Marsiling public housing block and fished out envelopes that altogether contained S$10,800 worth of Budget 2020 grocery vouchers.

The couple then spent them at various supermarkets, buying multiple mobile phones and a laptop to resell for cash. They also exchanged some of the vouchers for cash to buy cigarettes.

On Thursday (April 29), the wife, Tanty Yohaida Samad, 45, was sentenced to 48 weeks’ jail — about 11 months. She was also ordered to serve another 121 days behind bars as she had breached a remission order for drug consumption while committing her latest offences.

She pleaded guilty to 15 theft charges on Thursday, with another 57 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

Her husband, Zulkeflei Mohamed Yatim, was also charged and his case is pending. 

The couple had stolen the grocery vouchers from 72 victims.

The government-issued vouchers, which had been announced during the Unity Budget in February last year, had been mailed to 150,000 Singaporeans to help with their household expenses. 

A total of 229 sets of vouchers — worth S$150 each — were reported stolen as of end-October last year and 55 arrests had been made, Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah told Parliament in November. 

Most voucher recipients are aged 55 and older.

The court heard that Tanty and Zulkeflei also received the vouchers themselves. 

Knowing that fellow residents in their block would likely be recipients as well, Tanty floated the idea of stealing the vouchers from their neighbours.

When her husband agreed, they began going to letterboxes in the wee hours of the morning in October last year, usually past midnight, to avoid detection.

They targeted letterboxes with unsecured flaps, inserting a clothes hanger through the flap and fishing out the envelopes containing the vouchers. Each envelope had 15 vouchers valued at S$10 each.

Zulkeflei would use pliers to break open the letterboxes if this method did not work. Tanty kept a lookout while he put all the letters into his bag, before they returned home and went through them, only keeping the envelopes with the vouchers.

Some of their victims did not notice what had happened since there were no visible signs of tampering on their letterboxes.

The couple eventually branched out to their neighbouring block.

They spent the vouchers at supermarkets, including a Sheng Siong outlet in Marsiling and the NTUC FairPrice outlets at Jem and Nex malls.

Among the items they bought were Vivo mobile phones that cost between S$369 and S$599 and an Acer laptop worth S$398. They then sold the mobile phones and pocketed the cash.

Fifteen victims later made police reports, including one who reported the loss of vouchers that should have been mailed to his 93-year-old mother, who was immobile and lived alone.

The remaining victims were identified after the Health Promotion Board checked the serial numbers on the vouchers that Tanty and Zulkeflei used.

For each theft charge, Tanty could have been jailed for up to three years or fined, or punished with both.