S'porean man, 31, working at Yishun jewellery store swapped gold pieces with Taobao copies, pawns them, gets jail

A Singaporean man working at a jewellery store in Yishun stole 24 pieces of gold jewellery and replaced six pieces with copies from Taobao.

Darren Wai Mun Jun, 31, was employed as an assistant store manager at CHJ Singapore Jewel at Northpoint City at the time.

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Wai stole S$216,613.05 worth of gold jewellery and pawned the 24 pieces he swiped for S$131,253 in cash.

Wai used the ill-gotten gains to pay off his debts and to gamble.

On Aug. 20, Wai was sentenced to two years, four months and two weeks' jail after pleading guilty to two counts of theft and one count of dealing with the benefits of his criminal conduct, according to The Straits Times (ST).

He has not made restitution.

Bought copies on Taobao

Wai was employed by CHJ in September 2025 and was promoted to an assistant store manager the following month.

He was responsible for assisting the manager and attending to customers.

He was also one of the staff members who held the shop key.

In late December 2025, Wai conceived a plan to replace the jewellery with gold-coloured ones purchased from Taobao, the Chinese online commercial platform.

He purchased many Taobao items with the purpose of substituting the gold pieces.

Weighed real item and matched it to fake counterpart

Before making the swaps, Wai would weigh the item he intended to replace and select the Taobao piece that matched it in weight and appearance.

He would arrive early to work or wait for his colleagues to go on their breaks, and swap the CHJ jewellery with the Taobao ones when he was alone in the shop.

To avoid detection, he would also switch off the Wi-Fi to disable the shop's CCTV.

Wai would then transfer the price tag from the real item to the Taobao copy, placing the copy on display before switching the Wi-Fi back on.

He carried out this plan initially but began stealing jewellery pieces by replacing the stolen pieces with stock pieces from the shop's own inventory, as he knew the store did not have a proper stock-taking system.

Pawned items

In December 2025, Wai stole gold necklaces weighing 62.37g and 70.35g on two separate occasions. The necklaces were worth S$37,825.20 in total.

He pawned the necklaces at two different pawnshops, and the 62.37g necklace was later seized from the pawnshop.

On 22 separate occasions between Jan. 8, 2026 and Jan. 20, 2026, Wai stole S$178,787.85 worth of gold jewellery consisting of bangles, bracelets and necklaces.

Of the 22 stolen items, 18 were seized from pawnshops.

Colleague discovered deception

On Jan. 21, 2026, a colleague was serving a customer at the store when she discovered that the weight of a gold bangle she was selling did not match the weight reflected on the price tag.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed the bangle did not bear the "CHJ" engraving on its inner surface.

She checked the other items on display with another colleague and found that four gold bangles did not belong to CHJ.

Wai was not on duty at the time.

ST reported that Wai was arrested later that same day.

On Aug. 20, Wai's bail was set at S$15,000, and he will begin his sentence on Sep. 3.