THEY stole to have a good time at a bar and ended up behind bars instead.

The two crooks had stolen credit cards at a local nightspot.

They then had the audacity - or perhaps sheer stupidity - to use the cards to buy two bottles of brandy in the same nightspot.

Not only did they hang around at the scene of their crime, which made it easy for the police to nab them, one of them also used his personal membership card to earn points on his purchase with the stolen card.

In January, both were sent to jail - Neo Jun Wei, 21, for six weeks and his 23-year-old friend, known only as Wuu, for nine weeks.

According to court papers, the thieves swiped two credit cards from a partygoer's handbag to buy drinks at Dragonfly at St James Power Station last May.

The incident happened on a Sunday morning between 2am and 2.20am.

When no one was looking, Wuu stole a handbag left unattended on the bar, which had two credit cards inside, belonging to the victim's boyfriend.

Wuu handed one card to Neo, then went to the bar and paid $765 for a bottle of brandy with the other card.

Neo later bought another bottle of brandy and charged $688.50 to the credit card Wuu had given him.

The New Paper understands that he also presented his membership card to earn points for the fraudulent purchase.

Wuu and Neo eventually chalked up a tab of over $1,400.

While the duo continued to party, the victim called the police and alerted the staff when she realised that her bag had been stolen.

The fact that Neo and Wuu stayed on to party after the theft made it easy for the club's security personnel to track them down, a StJames spokesman told The New Paper.

He said: 'Using the name on the credit cards, the staff checked the cashiering system and found the waiter who took the orders under these two fraudulent transactions.

'Once they were identified, the security members held them until the police arrived.'

Upon his arrest, Wuu had to pay for the bottle of brandy, which had been consumed.

St James said it refunded the price of the other bottle, which had not been opened, to the victim.

CHEATS

In her judgment, district judge Thian Yee Sze said: 'Their exploits were marked by a dishonest intention to cheat... They fraudulently used the credit card to pay for their indulgences.'

Both Neo and Wuu are first-time offenders.

In 2005, a marketing executive stole MediaCorp actress Fiona Xie's wallet from her bag, which she had left on a seat, at the former Liquid Room dance club at Robertson Quay.

He and his 24-year-old girlfriend left the nightspot and charged more than $8,000 on her credit cards at the Mustafa Centre department store in Little India. He was jailed for a year and she for two weeks.

All the items they bought were recovered.

St James said this was the first time the club had come across credit card thieves.

The management has revoked Neo's membership and banned both thieves from their regular haunt.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 1, 2008