Singapore ICA officer guilty of cash theft from Changi Airport fliers; gets 14-month jail term

An officer of the Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) team at Changi Airport has pleaded guilty to stealing cash totalling SGD 550 from three international travellers, using a sleight of hand that left the victims unaware of the theft until they reached home. He has been sentenced to 14 months in prison.

According to The Straits Times today, the ICA officer named Muhammad Fadhil Mohamed Salleh, 36, had faced a total of five charges of stealing cash —SGD 650 — from foreigners while they were clearing immigration at Changi Airport. He pleaded guilty to three charges yesterday.

ST said that his bail was set at SGD 10,000 and that he was told to surrender at the State Courts on September 9 to begin serving his prison sentence.

While pleading guilty, Salleh said that he had committed the cash theft because of financial stress at home. The officer has been suspended from the ICA since October 2023.

His strategy for the theft was to randomly pick foreigners clearing immigration at Changi Airport and then to take them aside for an extra “check” of baggage. Salleh was stationed at the departure hall of Changi Airport Terminal 4.

Citing the details furnished in court documents, the ST report said that Salleh “flagged” the victims, without giving them any reason, and took them into the interview room. There, he asked them to put their carry-on bag on a table and take out the contents of the bag.

Once an anxious traveller had taken everything out of their bag, Salleh would pretend to count their cash in front of them — holding the cash in the left hand and counting with the right hand — and from time to time, he would put some of the cash on the interview room table for the traveller to put back into their bag.

While the traveller was putting part of the cash back into the bag, Salleh would hide some of the cash that he was counting in his right hand. Once he had finished counting, and the victim was busy repacking the bag, Salleh would simply put his right hand — holding the hidden cash — in his pocket and put the money there.

The travellers, whose cash was thus stolen by the ICA officer, would be none the wiser until they reached their destination and found some of their cash missing.

ST said that the amounts stolen ranged from SGD 50 to SGD 400. The series of crimes came to light after a Thai woman, who had lost SGD 400, reported the theft on the ICA website. Airport CCTV footage revealed the officer’s sleight of hand.

Yesterday, during court proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mark Chia said that such crimes harmed the image of Singapore, and asked for a jail term up to 15 months.

“If travellers are not safe from even its [law enforcement officers], who are they safe from?” the DPP was quoted as saying, by ST. “General deterrence must, therefore, apply to signal an absolute intolerance towards such abuses by [such officers] whose actions risk tarnishing the country’s global standing.”