S$700 fine for tourist who stole Charles & Keith backpack less than an hour after arriving at Changi Airport

SINGAPORE: A tourist who had been passing through Changi Airport has been slapped with a S$700 fine for stealing a backpack worth S$89.90 from the Charles & Keith outlet in the airport, less than an hour after arriving in Singapore.

Thirty-year-old Garg Prasha, who had been travelling from Kolkata, India, was en route to Bali, Indonesia, when she had a layover in Singapore on Jun 2. She decided to shop in the transit terminal and visited the Charles and Keith outlet, where she took a liking to a black backpack that had been on display.

Instead of paying for the item, Garg placed the bag into the luggage trolley she was using and exited the store. She was caught after an employee spotted the theft and the store alerted the police. The bag was recovered in its original condition.

Sentencing her to a S$700 fine on Monday (Jun 16) after she pleaded guilty to one count of theft, Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan said, “The only saving grace was that the bag was recovered, but she has been effectively caught red-handed here.”

That same day, Garg’s acquaintance, 29-year-old Kolkata native Goenka Simran, was sentenced to eight days’ jail after she stole a yellow purse from the Furla outlet at Changi Airport in a similar fashion to Garg’s theft.

The bag Goenka stole was worth over S$300. She then stole a bottle of perfume from a cosmetics store at Terminal 2, worth over S$200.

The judge said, “She was supposed to be in Singapore for only 10 hours, but she decided to help herself to the goods worth more than S$500 in total during that time. She would have gotten away if not for the quick actions of the authorities and staff, and once she gets away, it would be impossible to recover the items.”

The court heard that Garg and Goenka were not part of a syndicate, though they knew each other.