Unwell staff forgets to keep 10 donation boxes at Geylang coffee shop, over S$20,000 stolen

Around 4am on Jun. 14, the manager of a coffee shop stall in Geylang got a call from one of her employees informing her that all 10 donation boxes had been stolen, along with over S$20,000 cash.

These boxes were placed on a trolley along the corridor at the front of the coffee shop where Kwan Tzi Zhai Vegetarian Cuisine operated.

The charity boxes collected donations from the public for various non-profit organisations, including the Buddha of Medicine Welfare Society, the Singapore Chung Hwa Medical Institution, and the Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic.

The 72-year-old manager, surnamed Zhu (transliteration), told Shin Min Daily News that it was not the first time the stall's donation boxes had been stolen.

The previous theft happened 10 years ago, and the incident prompted her to make sure the boxes were kept indoors every night after closing.

On the night of Jun. 13, however, the employee in charge of closing up was feeling unwell, and forgot this step.

Felt guilty

In response to Mothership's queries, the police said they were alerted to a case of theft at about 5:30am at Block 134 Geylang East Avenue 1, where the coffee shop was located.

When Shin Min reporters visited the scene, they saw that the cable tie that previously secured the donation boxes had been cut.

After the first theft 10 years ago, Zhu added some features to make the boxes more secure, and spent close to S$3,000 on customised steel structures.

They were apparently not enough to prevent the theft, however.

Zhu estimated that the total amount in all the boxes was between S$20,000 and S$30,000, as each box typically contained between S$2,000 and S$3,000 when the respective organisations collected the donations once a month.

She was frustrated and felt a great deal of responsibility for what happened, knowing that donations for so many organisations were affected by this theft.

"I don't understand why people would even steal charity donations," she said. "And we were always so careful. Just this once we slipped up, and the money was stolen."

The employee who closed up expressed guilt and apologised to Zhu repeatedly.

Blind spot

Zhu believed that the thief had planned the act and took advantage of the blind spots of the coffee shop's CCTV cameras.

As the incident happened after all the stalls had closed, none of their internal CCTV cameras captured what happened.

Although many cameras were installed at other areas of the coffee shop, the thief was not caught on the footage, possibly because he moved along the blind spots only, Zhu said.

An employee at the coffee shop told her that one of the trolleys used to collect used bowls and plates had also disappeared.

This made her suspect that the thief took this trolley and used it to bring the donation boxes away.

When the boxes were full, they would be very heavy, at about 4kg to 5kg each, according to Zhu.

Police investigations are ongoing.