Man jailed over $99,000 cargo theft

A cargo handler who stole seven watches worth nearly $100,000 from a courier bag was jailed for two months on Thursday.

The usual sentence for stealing goods worth so much is more than a year in jail, said District Judge Christopher Goh.

But Tiaggu Muniappan, who pleaded guilty, received a lighter sentence as he did not know that the bag he took contained such valuables.

"He did not actually intend to steal $100,000 worth of items," explained the judge.

"It is just he took the bag and the items were valued as such."

The watches have since been recovered from the 35-year-old Malaysian, who had kept them at his Johor home.

Tiaggu was a Sats cargo mail coordinator when he stole from Sats Airfreight Terminal 6 on Feb 22.

He was on duty from 1am to 10am that day when he saw a white FedEx courier bag that had been left behind in a small bin.

After breaking the cable-tie which secured the bag, he found several documents and three white boxes containing luxury watches.

He stole two hair bands, six Franck Muller watches and a F.P. Journe watch with a total value of $98,575, then disposed of the FedEx bag.

His lawyer John Abraham said his client committed the offence after a momentary lapse of judgement.

Tiaggu could have been jailed for up to three years and/or fined.

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