Maid steals S$17K from employer’s kids’ ang pao & savings

SINGAPORE: A domestic helper who stole thousands of dollars from the children of her employer has been slapped with a 10-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to theft on June 3.

Mai Aye Su Naing, a 27-year-old Myanmar national, took money from the children to fund her addiction to online gambling, eventually stealing a total of S$17,000.

The children, who are aged 11 and 12, had kept their red ang pao envelopes as well as other money they had saved in one of the bedrooms. After Mai’s gambling addiction began, she began taking the money, according to a report in Shin Min Daily News.

The backstory

Mai began working for a family in Queen Astrid Park on Holland Road in March 2025. In February, she chanced upon an online slot machine game on Facebook, and found that she needed to add to her account in Myanmar in order to keep playing.

She first took S$1000 from the children’s money, giving it to a male acquaintance who helped her change the money to Myanmar kyat, which she deposited into her gaming account. Unsurprisingly, she lost all of it in a short time.

However, as she wanted to keep on playing and even recover her losses, she kept on taking money from the box where the children kept their savings, and later found six ang pao envelopes that contained S$6,000. She did not take all the money, but left S$100 in each red packet so that the children would not get suspicious.

She took S$17,000 from the children’s savings in a matter of a few days.

Each time she stole money, she would exchange it for Myanmar currency in order to gamble more. Though she claimed she won three times, she was never able to cash in on her winnings, as her gambling account was frozen.

When the children checked on their money and could not find it, they told their mother, who then questioned the helper. Mai was arrested after she admitted to having taken the money.

The helper, who has been unable to pay any of the money she stole from the children, apologised to the family in court. /TISG

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