If you’ve used the office paper supply for a personal project, or liberated a box of paperclips from the stationary closet for home use, your conscience can breathe a little easier. As of Monday, the bar for office supply misappropriation got a little higher.
Zulkiflie Yacob, a 45-year-old senior exec at Singapore’s Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA), pled guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust for stealing $80,000 worth of printer cartridges from his employer over two years.
the theft of 621 printer cartridges
The two guilty pleas cover the theft of 621 printer cartridges, with a further 132 stolen printer cartridges (worth $13,000) covered by a third charge. These additional printer cartridges will be considered during sentencing. That’s a total of? 753 cartridges worth $93,000.
Yacob stole these cartridges over the course of two years, over-ordering the cartridges for the CRA as part of usual office supply acquisitions. Yacob then nicked the excess ink and flipped it online. The average cost per unit of his haul was $124, with each cartridge fetching between $50 and $100 on the street.
After pleading guilty, Yacob paid back $25,000 to his employer, and put up $15,000 as bail. He also requested a sentence of no more than 16 months. The sentencing guidelines allow for up to 20 years per count. Yacob is expected to turn himself in on April 28 to begin serving his time.