SINGAPORE, Jan 11 — Saddled with personal debts, a logistics manager for an iPhone repair service company teamed up with an ex-colleague to misappropriate defective phones and sell them for S$100(RM303) to S$550 each.The pair ended up selling 25,501 of the devices for more than S$5.7 million. Serene Ng Shu Kian got away with the scheme for a year before Apple auditors conducted a surprise check on her employer.
Ng earned about S$3.1 million in profits, using them for personal expenses, repaying her debts and setting up a provision shop business.
Today, Ng, 39, was sentenced to nine years’ jail after pleading guilty to one count each of criminal breach of trust as a servant and using benefits from criminal conduct.The latter charge was in relation to Ng using S$71,750 to put down a deposit for a condominium unit in Tampines. She had intended to buy it for investment purposes.
At the time of her offences from January 2018 to January 2019, she worked for Pegatron Service Singapore.
The firm provided repair services for Apple in Singapore and other Asian countries.
Ng was in charge of the logistics material department. As part of her job, she received and assigned defective iPhones to repair teams, then delivered the devices to the relevant destination.
In late 2017, Ng and her former colleague — Malaysian Lim Hen Hee — agreed to pocket the defective phones and sell them overseas to third parties.They exploited security gaps so that neither Pegatron nor Apple would realise that there were missing phones.
Lim kept the profits for himself for the first few months, as a way to offset the personal loan of about S$100,000 that Ng owed him. They tracked their scheme using spreadsheets.As the scheme progressed, Ng received 50 per cent of the profits.
Later on, she negotiated for 60 per cent as she felt that she did most of the work.
How it worked
Ng would instruct her subordinate to charge the defective iPhones’ batteries, set aside any that could be powered up, and place them in a cabinet in the logistics office.
The subordinate would then pack the phones into boxes and Ng would arrange a courier company to collect them.
She endorsed the delivery orders personally, sending the boxes to a Malaysian address that Lim provided.
Lim liaised with buyers overseas to sell the phones.Their ruse was uncovered when three auditors from Apple’s compliance and security team ran a surprise check on Pegatron in May 2019, discovering many iPhones unaccounted for. Pegatron’s general manager lodged a police report three days later.
Pegatron had to compensate Apple about US$5 million (RM20.2 million) for the 25,501 defective phones that Ng misappropriated on over 99 occasions.
Lim, 48, has been charged and his case is still pending.
In June 2019, Pegatron sued Ng for damages and obtained an injunction order stopping her from disposing of her assets in Singapore.
She has not made restitution but agreed that the properties seized by police officers during investigations, worth about S$130,000, can be given as restitution to her former employer.
‘I will face the music’
Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Zhi Hao sought the sentence imposed, saying there was significant premeditation and planning to bypass security protocols. Ng had also “enjoyed the fruits of her ill-gotten gains”, the prosecutor added.
He noted that while Ng was diagnosed with depression, she had made a conscious choice to commit her offences.
She was previously convicted of criminal breach of trust in 2012, and spent two months behind bars.
Ng’s lawyer, Sunil Sudheesan, also noted that an Institute of Mental Health report showed no significant contributory link between her mental condition and her offences.
In mitigation, Sudheesan — whom the court had asked to help Ng out — argued for less than seven years’ jail.
“We acknowledge there is an issue of loss suffered by the company… but the situation for her at this juncture is one of a person suffering from depression with suicidal tendencies,” he said.
“She has a 12-year-old daughter who will most certainly miss her mother.”
Ng was discharged from bankruptcy in 2016 and had borrowed S$300,000 from loan sharks, which resulted in her paying them more than S$3 million, she told the court.
In tears, she told District Judge Jasvender Kaur that she was ready to plead guilty and only cared about her daughter.
“I think I should be responsible for my mistakes and serve the sentence and punishment given to me so she can grow up and be blessed. That’s all. I don’t need to mitigate. I will face the music,” she added.
For criminal breach of trust as a servant, she could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined. — TODAY
