Thieves use stick to steal 'thousands' from Changi Road temple's donation boxes

Sherlyn Sim
The Straits Times
Sep 3, 2023

A Taoist temple in Changi Road said it will change the locks on its doors after money was stolen from donation boxes by two thieves on Saturday.

CCTV footage taken at Hoon Sian Keng temple showed two men picking the locks of the temple’s doors at 1.50am on Saturday.

The temple was closed at that time. It contacted the police at 2.20am.

When the men saw that there was no one in the temple hall, they used a torchlight to check if there was money in the donation boxes.

They then slid a long stick with double-sided tape into two boxes and moved it several times before retrieving the cash stuck to the tool.

A female committee member who lives in the temple spotted the duo in action.

“When the committee member saw the thieves, they ran away. She then contacted other committee members.

“We did a check of the temple for any more thieves,” the temple’s assistant treasurer, Mr Issac Thong, told The Straits Times on Sunday.

The temple was unable to confirm the amount of money stolen.

The police said a report had been made and investigations are ongoing.

In January, two Chinese nationals were sentenced to three months’ jail for stealing a total of $11,930 from several temples, Chinese newspaper Shin Min Daily News reported.

They used a tool with double-sided tape to retrieve notes from the donation boxes.

One of them said he learnt to make the tool from videos on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok.

In another case, two men were sentenced to six months’ jail last October for breaking into a temple in Sembawang on three occasions within a month, according to Shin Min Daily News.

They also used a similar tool to retrieve cash from donation boxes.