Police arrest suspect in series of shop thefts

Police have arrested a 41-year-old man for suspected involvement in a series of shop theft cases.

The police said that they received a report on Monday at 11am about a shop theft that happened in one of the shopping malls in Gateway Drive.

Officers conducted ground enquiries and checks in the vicinity and reviewed closed-circuit TV footage to identify the suspect, and recent image of the suspect was disseminated, the police said in a statement today.

A man fitting the description from the CCTV footage was spotted on Monday afternoon at about 5.20pm in Jurong East Central and subsequently arrested.

Police said that preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect is also involved in seven other cases of theft, with the total value of stolen items to be about $1,000.

The suspect will be charged in Court tomorrow for shop theft, and, if found guilty, could be jailed for up to seven years, fined, or both, the police said.

sinsh@sph.com.sg