A warehouse coordinator who turned a blind eye on his colleague for stealing almost $1 million worth of plastic resin from a company was jailed for 61/2 years on Thursday.

Chai Kin Fatt, 36, a Malaysian, was working for CWT Logistics when he stole 20 containers of plastic resin with his accomplice, warehouse assistant Lim Choon Ngee, 29, Malaysian, who is on the run. Chai pleaded guilty to four of 10 counts involving $508,495 at CWT Commodity Hub at Penjuru Road between April 18 and May 6. The remaining charges were taken into consideration.

A district court heard that Chai who was in charge of Level 3 of the warehouse had to conduct routine checks on the stock quantities to ensure there was no discrepancy.

Investigation showed that in April this year, the two agreed on a plan to steal the goods from the warehouse. Lim would steal the containers of plastic resin and Chai was to turn a blind eye by not reporting the discrepancies in quantities to the management. He was promised $20,000 for his help but got none of it.

The offences came to light on May 13 when CWT's operations manager was informed that a container-load of 990 packets of plastic resin was missing from Level 3.

Stock checks carried out the next day showed the loss of 20 containers of plastic resin valued at $960,491.

Chai could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined on each charge.