After the employer of a domestic helper found a number of pawn tickets that matched the missing items in their household among the maid’s belongings, she confronted the helper.
The maid admitted to having stolen the items from the employer, which eventually led to her arrest.
She has been identified only by a first name, “Marie.” The 38-year-old helper, who hails from the Philippines, pleaded guilty to one count of theft, and was sentenced on Thursday (June 9) to five months in jail.
The total amount of the items stolen from the employer reached $8,406.
“Marie” would pawn the items and then send the money to her relatives back home.
And while many of the items have been retrieved from the pawn shops where the helper took them, Shin Min Daily News reported that police have not been able to get back the gold bar and a gold chain that “Marie” stole from her employer.
The police were also unable to retrieve another item, a ed packet containing $400.
“Marie” began working for her employer in October 2018.
Items belonging to her employer went missing between February 2021 and December 2021.
Among the items the maid was able to steal are the gold bar, two gold necklaces, five gold chains, a pendant, the red packet with $400 in it, a phone and charger.
Ironically, some of the items “Marie” took were not even valuable, such as make-up that cost $1.
But in April of this year, finding the pawn tickets among “Marie’s” belongings caused her employer to grow suspicious, which led her to discover that some of her valuables had also been stolen.
The employer reported the thievery to the police, as well as to “Marie’s” employment agency.
The helper said that she was aware of where her employer hid valuable items and that she took these when she did household chores, which police discovered during the course of investigations.
Unfortunately, stories of helpers stealing from their employers are not uncommon.
Recently, a maid from Indonesia was discovered to have stolen 74 items from her employer after the courier company refused to send the stolen items to the helper’s boyfriend in India and to her friend in Indonesia.
She was given a six-week jail sentence for stealing the items, which are worth almost $3000.
And on May 31, one employer posted on the Facebook group FDW in Singapore asking for advice on her problematic full-time maid.
Among the problems that the helper gave the employer is that she reportedly stole from them. The employer wrote that she “noticed some of my valuables (less than 2000$) missing from my usual place in my room which has restricted entry.”
/TISG