A desktop engineer out on bail for a theft-related offence ended up working with the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) where he stole over $62,000 worth of equipment before selling them on online marketplace Carousell.

Malaysian Soh Jun Sheng was yesterday jailed for two years after pleading guilty to seven counts of performing unauthorised modification to a computer's contents.

He had also admitted to one count each of criminal breach of trust as well as trespassing to commit theft.

A court heard that Soh, 22, was out on bail when he joined NCS as a desktop engineer on March 26 last year.

He was deployed to IMDA that same day and granted access to a few secured rooms at IMDA's office in Pasir Panjang Road. Soh's role was to provide IT support to IMDA and issue laptops to its employees.

But between April and June last year, he took items including 80 power adaptors, 30 laptops and six iPads belonging to IMDA.

Intending to sell the equipment on Carousell, Soh formatted the hard drives on the laptops and installed clean copies of the Windows 10 operating system.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Tan Hsiao Tien said Soh had to do that "to ensure that the purchasers would be able to use the laptops without being locked out by the security systems originally installed in the laptops for IMDA's use". IMDA did not authorise the modifications.

One of Soh's NCS colleagues uncovered the crime when it was realised that 10 laptops were missing from IMDA's office. The colleague alerted police on June 4 last year.

Soh was arrested later that day and some of the items were recovered from his home. But by then, Soh had already sold part of his loot for more than $28,000.

The items Soh sold were recovered from the buyers, except for two power adaptors, the court heard.

DPP Tan said: "Most of the money he received was spent in the casinos, while the remainder had been used to pay his bank debts or was spent on his daily expenses."

Soh was out on bail for trespassing to commit theft when he joined NCS.

The court heard that on Nov 16, 2017, Soh had entered a house in Chiselhurst Grove near Lorong Chuan at around 1.30am, while its occupants were asleep. He stole $3,750 worth of items including a camera, an Apple Macbook computer, as well as $900 in cash.

Although he got away, police were able to identify him and he was arrested two weeks later. All the items stolen from the house were recovered.

Soh has made no restitution.