A man who stole a tap from a police station in Woodlands to install it in his own home got a three months jail sentence on Thursday (Aug 15). But that did not stop him from being parodied by IKEA.
The furniture store allegedly made use of the opportunity to sell their own taps called ‘Lagan’ at S$39 each.
Seah Kian Li, 50, was at Woodlands Police Division HQ on Mar 1 to bail his brother out from the police station when he stole the tap worth S$171.20 from the basin.
Almost a month later on Mar 28, a cleaning supervisor noticed that a tap was missing from the toilet.
An officer checked the CCTV footage and after Seah was identified, the officer lodged a police report at Woodlands West Neighbourhood Police Centre on Apr 16.
The police raided the tap thief’s home to find the stolen basin tap fixed on the basin in his toilet.
Seah was arrested, and the tap recovered and seized as a case exhibit.
He later admitted that he had gone to the toilet while at the station that night to bail his brother out when he noticed that a tap at the basin was loose.
He checked it and realised that it was suitable for his home toilet basin and stole it.
The IKEA advertisement referred to the price of the tap in their advertisement which read, “How to prevent a $171.20 Basin Tap Theft? You can’t. But you can buy more to replace”
Seah pleaded guilty to one charge of vandalism on Thursday. The prosecutor said he would leave the handling of the seized tap to the police.
For vandalism, Seah faces up to three years’ jail time or a maximum fine of S$2,000.
While it is unclear whether it was IKEA that came up with the ad, TISG has reached out to IKEA to verify the authenticity of the advertisement. /TISG