Singtel retail consultant who sold details of customers for $180 gets more than 4 months' jail

Kelvin Foo Cheek Ann was employed by Telecom Equipment, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG

SINGAPORE - A retail consultant who sold details of Singtel customers and used the money to pay off a drinking debt has been sentenced to 18 weeks in jail.

Kelvin Foo Cheek Ann, 32, pleaded guilty to a corruption charge and five charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act (CMCA). Another 10 similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing on Tuesday (Jan 26).

Foo had sold the information for $180 to Lee Cheng Yan, 37, a Maserati driver who was later jailed in another case, for causing grievous hurt to a police officer.

Foo was working as a retail consultant at the Singtel shop at Parkway Parade, selling mobile and broadband plans to customers.

He was employed by Telecom Equipment, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel.

In 2015, Lee, an acquaintance of his, asked for his help in retrieving customer details from the Singtel system. Lee offered Foo $20 for each number.

On 15 occasions up till July 2017, Foo used his access rights to the system to provide particulars of Singtel's subscribers to Lee.

These included at least five subscribers who later reported instances of harassment such as calls, text messages and people showing up at their houses demanding that money be returned.

Lee paid Foo a total of $180. As Foo owed Lee money from their drinking sessions, they deducted this sum from the debt.

Lee was last year jailed for four years and seven months and disqualified from driving for life for dragging a traffic police officer with his Maserati car for more than 100m along Bedok Reservoir Road in 2017.

Prior to his conviction, he had claimed his car was driven that day by another man, known only as Kelvin.

Lee is currently facing 59 more charges, including 25 under the CMCA.

For each charge under the CMCA, Foo could have been jailed for up to two years, or fined up to $5,000, or both.

A spokesman for Singtel said it has a zero-tolerance policy for such misconduct and terminated Foo's employment as soon as it was aware of his wrongdoing.

"We expect our employees to serve with integrity and honesty," she said. "We continue to reinforce our security measures to protect our data and hold regular Code of Conduct and Data Protection Policy training for all our staff."

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