The coronavirus pandemic has brought about a surge in delivery-related jobs, as more people are choosing to buy things online from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
Ninja Van is one of the most popular and widely used delivery services in Singapore, and they even offer cash-on-delivery, which allows customers to pay for their items only after they have received them.
However, that feature provided a dishonest delivery man with a ‘quick-cash’ scheme.
Ninja Van Deliveryman Steals $18,555 and 16 Mobile Phones
Derrick Tan Jian Sheng, 35, was caught for taking more than $18,000 in cash and mobile phones worth S$3,850 from Ninja Van customers.
He was sentenced to jail on Wednesday, 19 Aug, after pleading guilty to a single charge of criminal breach of trust as a servant.
According to court documents, he started working for Ninja Van in April 2018 and started his stealing spree a month later.
How He Did It
Tan’s job required him to collect payment from customers for cash-on-delivery items and hand the money over to Ninja Van within 24 hours.
He was also responsible for deliveries of trade-in mobile phones, which is a system for customers who bought mobile phones through an online sales channel who were Ninja Van’s clients.
Tan had to verify that these mobile phones were in good working condition, before handing them over to Ninja Van.
There was no payment involved for the trade-in of mobile phones unless the condition of the phone was deemed “unacceptable”.
For such cases, Tan collected cash from the customers instead.
He had collected a total of 16 mobile phones which were worth $3,850 in trade-in value, and they were supposed to be handed over to his employer within 24 hours after collection.
However, Tan started to sell these phones on Carousell instead and he used the $18,555 in cash that he had collected to pay off his personal debts.
Tracked Down By GPS
So, how did he get caught?
Well, it’s not like Ninja Van was not going to realise that $18,555 in payment was missing. Eventually, they caught up with what was going on and realised that something was very wrong.
On 8 June, Ninja Van’s finance department told Tan’s manager that there had been multiple discrepancies from Tan’s deliveries.
The manager was nice enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He arranged to meet Tan on 11 June, giving Tan a chance to hand over the missing money and explain the discrepancies.
However, Tan failed to show up and could not be contacted despite multiple attempts from his manager.
The manager was left with no choice but to call the police, who managed to track his location to M Hotel via the GPS in the company van assigned to him.
Tan admitted to his crimes when he was confronted.
He has since made S$200 in restitution.
He Was In A Difficult Financial Situation
Tan’s lawyer, Ms Shehzhadee Rahman from IRB Law, asked for not more than eight months’ jail, as Tan had wanted to make full restitution but was unable to because of his financial situation.
He had been unemployed for the past year, and he used most of the money that he had taken to pay off a fine to LTA.
The fine was reportedly more than $23,000.
“In fact, he had gone to great lengths to raise the S$200, as he had to repay personal loans and has been unemployed for the past year,” she said.
However, the judge stated that no act of dishonesty is justifiable, and told the lawyer not to place emphasis on that point.
For criminal breach of trust as a servant, Tan could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.
This isn’t the first time that a dishonest Ninja Van driver was caught and charged.
Previously, another driver made use of a loophole in the system to take any items that caught his eye.
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