Man jailed for using other people’s NRIC numbers to illegally redeem Temasek face masks

SINGAPORE — Wanting to secure extra reusable experience masks for himself that were issued by Temasek Foundation final yr, a male hatched a scheme to use the identity card figures of 14 Singaporeans that he had obtained in the study course of his get the job done.

On Tuesday (Feb 22), Ng Wee Siang, 35, pleaded responsible to a one demand of dishonest and dishonestly inducing a supply of home and was jailed for 8 weeks.

The court heard that Ng’s offences took place concerning March 2 and 4 very last calendar year.

In the thirty day period ahead of that, Temasek Foundation, the non-revenue philanthropic arm of state expense firm Temasek Holdings, announced that it would be commencing its fourth nationwide reusable mask distribution initiative to aid the community cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each of the face mask packs, which could only be redeemed once by way of a vending equipment by keying in an individual’s National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) selection, was really worth S$10.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Louis Ngia reported that someday just before March 2 final calendar year, Ng had by now collected a deal with mask with his own NRIC but “wanted more”.

He then decided to use the NRIC numbers of various people today that he by now experienced.

At the time of the offences, Ng was performing as a waiter at the Central Perk Cafe around Havelock Street, and experienced received the NRIC details of 24 people by many implies.

As a waiter, he was in a position to consider a photograph of the identification card belonging to the cafe’s former supervisor, which he stored on his telephone.

Someday just before March previous 12 months, he also gained a photograph of a name list of workers, which was despatched to him in a textual content information on WhatsApp.

The list contained the names and NRIC numbers of 17 Singapore citizens, DPP Ngia said. It is not crystal clear if the workforce were being from the cafe, but the prosecutor reported that Ng had no relation to them. 

The list was despatched to Ng mistakenly, but he took a screenshot of the information in advance of deleting the message.

All over the very same time period, Ng also been given a Central Provident Fund printout supplied by his earlier employer, which shown the names and NRIC figures of 6 workforce other than himself.

DPP Ngia stated that Ng’s preceding employer, an unnamed enterprise, experienced delivered this to each individual of the personnel for their possess records.

With all the facts in hand, Ng illegally redeemed a whole of S$140 truly worth of confront masks for himself on 14 situations at Temasek Foundation’s vending equipment identified at a few destinations: Chin Swee Street, Anchorvale Street and Fernvale Hyperlink.

Ng’s steps were uncovered when the former cafe supervisor attempted to redeem a deal with mask for himself, only to find that it had presently been gathered.

This prompted the guy to file a police report.

When Ng was arrested, he surrendered 20 mask packs to the police, which he admitted were redeemed applying the NRIC of other people without the need of their authorisation.

For his offences, he could have been jailed up to 10 yrs and fined.