A flight attendant at Singapore Airlines’ low cost carrier, Scoot, has been jailed after stealing around 31K USD from the airline, across 366 flights. It’s kind of wild how this started, and the logic that was used, as reported by The Straits Times…
In this post:
Flight attendant makes mistake, then steals repeatedly
A 31-year-old former Scoot flight attendant has been arrested and charged with criminal breach of trust, which can potentially include a years-long jail sentence. This comes down to a scheme that took place between July 2023 and March 2025, which saw the flight attendant steal on 366 different occasions.
This flight attendant was an inflight supervisor for Scoot, and it seems this started innocently enough. Scoot sells food and drinks onboard, and passengers are allowed to pay for these items with cash or by card (many airlines are cashless nowadays, but not Scoot).
The protocol was that the inflight supervisor would place the cash in special Brinks bags, and at the end of each trip, the inflight supervisor would do a tally of the items sold, record them in the software, and then bring the bag with cash to the Scoot office in Singapore within 48 hours of the flight.
However, in July 2023, the flight attendant reportedly accidentally lost two of these bags, but didn’t report it to management, out of fear of being punished. To his surprise, the company didn’t initially confront him about this, so somehow he then decided to do this on every flight:
“Subsequently, (he) decided to keep the ‘Brinks bags’ and their cash proceeds after all his flights because he was worried that his supervisors would discover the loss of the first two bags. When his supervisors failed to confront him for not depositing the cash proceeds from the subsequent ‘Brinks bags,’ the accused continued to keep the ‘Brinks bags’ after each flight.”
So he kept the proceeds from flights on 156 occasions between July 2023 and March 2024, totaling around 14K USD. Then between April 2024 and March 2025, he kept the proceeds from flights on 210 occasions, totaling around 17K USD.
Investigations revealed that he used the proceeds from this scheme to repay his debts to unlicensed moneylenders.
Yeah, of course this scheme wasn’t going to end well
One certainly wonders if the first two bags being lost was actually a mistake, or just the flight attendant testing the waters to see what he could get away with.
I have to say, I find the logic here to be terribly puzzling. So he lost two bags, and then “he was worried that his supervisors would discover the loss of the first two bags,” so he decided to just keep all bags going forward? Make it make sense, please!
Unfortunately I suspect this was just a move out of desperation, which is of course sad, given the alleged debts he had to unlicensed moneylenders. Either way, Singapore really isn’t the country where you want to do something like this, since the country isn’t exactly known to be lenient to those who try stuff like this…
Bottom line
A former Scoot flight attendant has been arrested after a scheme was uncovered, whereby he stole on 366 different flights. This involves the proceeds from food and drink sales onboard.
The claim is that he lost two of the bags from one trip, and out of fear of being punished, he ultimately decided to keep the proceeds from all flights going forward. That money was then used to repay debts he had from unlicensed moneylenders.
Not that you should ever do this, but Singapore in particular is a country where it seems this will almost certainly end poorly…
When I was a teen I purchased a 45rpm record (those round black things) at a department store, paying cash. When I got home and played it, it skipped. So I asked my dad, who had a part time job at that store as a "floor walker", if he could return it for me. He looked at the receipt the sales clerk had given me and it showed a cancelled sale. He recognized immediately there...
When I was a teen I purchased a 45rpm record (those round black things) at a department store, paying cash. When I got home and played it, it skipped. So I asked my dad, who had a part time job at that store as a "floor walker", if he could return it for me. He looked at the receipt the sales clerk had given me and it showed a cancelled sale. He recognized immediately there was defalcation going on. Sure enough, they checked the register tapes and found this clerk had numerous cancelled sales every day. She would ring up the purchases, cancel the sales and keep the money. Why am I telling you this? I really don't know; thought it was interesting. And I flew Scoot once MNL-SIN.
Obviously, his superiors are also sleeping on the job. Airline needs to take corrective actions on accountability and procedures.
Wow, this Sounds like the real "300" movie. Why after just 366 flights ? It would have been bigger news after 1000 flights. Making 31K USD after 366 flights is like $85 into the pocket after each flight, if you do the maths. Very little income. He should get a salary raise. Even loansharks also don't want this kinda amount.
If you give people a loophole, someone will eventually exploit it. There's no excuse for the FAs criminal conduct, but neither is there an excuse for the grossly incompetent and laughably inadequate cash-handling procedures at Scoot. This is a major embarrassment for airline management, and heads really deserve to roll. It makes me wonder what else they're not keeping a sufficiently close eye on...
the wildest thing: according to the original ST article, Scoot found out because HE TOLD THEM. no one noticed otherwise!
Really? That's hilarious
Ooooooooo sum ting wong? Lok
RACIST PRICK!
“RACIST PRICK” …. posts the foul mouthed dullard.
Please be assured that the human behind the login ID ‘Jessica’ will never be accused of being a Lady, yes?
Ben, I want to report this racist, but the "Submit report" button doesn't work
I found it funny. Think you big guy eyed people get your knickers in a twist too quickly.
So dumb.
This is victimless, so if he just skimmed a little bit off the top at a time, he would never have gotten caught
Easier to prosecute petty crimes than to go after politicians, billionaires, and corporations….
And for what crimes would you be "going after" politicians, billionaires, and corporations?
I have investigated a lot of fraud cases in my life and more often than not you ask yourself who was more stupid.
The company which had serious defects in their control systems or the employee who thought they could get away with using those defects.
THE GUY AT THE CONTROL SYSTEM SHOULD WATCH FOR COLLECTING MONEY FROM FA AND RECONCILE THE DAILY COLLECTIONS IT IS A
MISTAKE ON THE PART OF THE GUY WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
DAY TO DAY COLLECTIONS ALSO HOW FA WILL IRRESPONSIBLY LOSE TWO BAGS HE DOES NOT DESERVE TO WORK AS FA HE CAN DO
ONLY GROUND DUTIES HE WILL NEVER GET ANY JOB IN SIN
SIN IS SUCH A...
THE GUY AT THE CONTROL SYSTEM SHOULD WATCH FOR COLLECTING MONEY FROM FA AND RECONCILE THE DAILY COLLECTIONS IT IS A
MISTAKE ON THE PART OF THE GUY WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
DAY TO DAY COLLECTIONS ALSO HOW FA WILL IRRESPONSIBLY LOSE TWO BAGS HE DOES NOT DESERVE TO WORK AS FA HE CAN DO
ONLY GROUND DUTIES HE WILL NEVER GET ANY JOB IN SIN
SIN IS SUCH A NICE PLACE AND ALSO TO GET A JOB IN SQ'S SUBSIDIARY AIRLINE HE SHOULBE VERY PROUD OF THE COMPANY AND
HIS FA JOB ENJOYING SEVERAL PLACES OF INTEREST AND GOOD FOOD
HE RUINED HIS EMPLOYMENT CARRIER
What probably got the attention of the home office was when someone noticed that they had to keep ordering hundreds of bags to replace the ones that he kept each time that normally would be reused.
If he hadn’t been greedy and just kept HALF of the money each flight (and returned the bags!), he would probably have his debts paid off!
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*attacking (not ‘taking’)
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ACTUALLY, They just announced they are taking it, buster!
Surprised they're so loose with cash management given you have to pay to charge your phone onboard.
...Singapore still uses caning as a severe corporal punishment for male offenders under 50, adding mandatory caning for scammers in late 2025. This feels 'scammy' to me...
Pretty fascinating that it’s up to the flight attendant to do the cash drop themselves rather than have a way to securely hand the bag over at the airport at the end of the flight. Besides the obvious security risk (as this story shows) it sounds like a significant undertaking if the Scoot office is outside the airport. How was this normally handled by airlines before nearly all of them went cashless?
I mean it's $80 a flight. It's not a ton of cash and no more than you'd give a waitress for dinner. They just had crap internal controls.
Can’t feel much sympathy for a guy who breaks the law over 300 times