Maid stole cash from employer’s red packets and stashed gold chain in toilet, gets jail

SINGAPORE: A maid stole more than S$8,000 (US$6,100) from her employer’s safe and red packets she found in a drawer over the course of about one-and-a-half years.
She also hid a gold chain worth S$2,500 in the common toilet, intending to take it to Indonesia with her.
Umini Bt Pojok Saniyah, a 39-year-old Indonesian, was sentenced to four months’ jail on Wednesday (Sep 4) for two counts of theft by servant, with a third charge taken into consideration.
The court heard that Umini worked for a 33-year-old Singaporean woman who lived with her husband and two children in a flat in Bukit Batok.
She began her job in January 2020 and was paid S$715 per month to perform duties such as household chores and caring for her employer’s children.
Sometime around early September 2022, Umini was “greedy” and decided to steal from her boss, the prosecution said.
She stole cash from red packets that had been kept in a master bedroom drawer and remitted most of the filched money – a sum of S$1,800 – to her family back in Indonesia.
She also used some of it to buy food for herself.
On another 17 occasions between Jan 11, 2023 and Dec 18, 2023, Umini stole S$4,648 in total from the red packets stored in the drawer.
She stole small amounts ranging from S$200 to S$400 each time to avoid detection and remitted the money home to her family.
Early this year, Umini found the key to a safe in the flat. The key had been stored in a yellow box that was placed beside the safe.
She stole a gold chain with a pendant worth S$2,500 from the safe and hid it in the common toilet, intending to bring it back to Indonesia with her.
She also stole cash from the safe, along with more cash from the red packets, between Jan 22 and Mar 14. She remitted the entire stolen sum of S$1,650 to her husband and sister in Indonesia.
On Mar 14, Umini’s employer realised that the cash in two red packets was missing.
She confronted Umini, who denied taking it.
When Umini left the house on her day off, her employer checked her belongings and discovered receipts indicating that she had remitted money to her sister and another person.
The employer contacted the remittance agency and requested for the statement of account of Umini’s transactions.
She received the statement three working days later and was shocked to see that Umini had been remitting large amounts of money to her sister and husband in Indonesia since 2022.
As she wanted to retain Umini as her domestic helper, the employer did not confront her immediately.
A few days later on Mar 19, the employer took her safe to her parents’ house, as she could not find the key.
She opened it and was shocked to see that the gold chain was missing, and that some of the red packets were empty.
The woman told Umini on Aug 14 that she wanted to end her contract and send her back to Indonesia.
She finally confronted Umini about the missing cash, and Umini admitted to stealing it. She retrieved the gold chain from where it was hidden and returned it to her employer.
Her employer then lodged a police report and Umini was arrested. She offered to make partial restitution to her employer – a sum of S$715 – which was her outstanding salary for a month.
The penalties for theft by servant are a jail term of up to seven years and a fine.