SOURCE: The New Paper

A woman claims she was so engrossed with her iPad while heading home on the MRT, she did not notice when two men allegedly took off with her iPhone which was in her bag.

The woman says she discovered her phone was missing only at about 6pm that evening when she arrived home. The police confirmed that a report has been made and that investigations are ongoing.

Yesterday, four Chinese nationals were charged in court for allegedly stealing on trains here. A police statement said that two of them were found loitering suspiciously in the vicinity of Dhoby Ghaut MRT station on Wednesday.

The police also spotted one of them stealing from an unsuspecting female commuter's handbag before going through the contents with the other suspect. The two were arrested, and two accomplices were subsequently arrested in Aljunied.

Earlier this month, police arrested three men who were allegedly involved in a spate of thefts on public buses.

The three men are believed to be involved in at least seven cases of theft between June 29 and July 5. They would slit the clothes of their victims to get at the money in their wallets.

Police also revealed a troubling trend of theft on planes. Some of the thieves are suspected to be syndicate members from China working in groups of three to four on a flight. Eighteen such reports have already been received this year.

Thieves would wait for their victims to fall asleep or go to the toilet before stealing cash that their victims kept in their travel or laptop bags, usually stowed in the compartments of the aircraft.

Read the full story in The New Paper on Saturday (July 21).