SINGAPORE - Enticed by a colleague’s money-making plan, a machine operator who had stayed loyal to her company for 18 years decided to steal from it.

Malaysian Lee I Rene, 59, an employee at ST Microelectronics, stole over 3kg worth of gold used to coat test wafers.

She was sentenced to two years’ jail on Monday.

She had pleaded guilty to two counts of theft. A third charge of theft was taken into consideration for sentencing.

Court documents said Lee’s job was to operate a machine that coated production wafers in gold. The company had five such machines that operated round the clock, and operators managed them on a shift basis.

Once the machine coated 800 wafers in gold, an operator would have to perform a qualification check on the machine.

The operator would place five pieces of test wafers for the machine to coat in gold, and check its quality. The test wafers would then be passed to another department to remove the gold.

Sometime in early 2019, Lee’s colleague Tang Ling told her she could be making more money by exploiting the qualification check process.

Tang, a Chinese national, told Lee that the latter could coat more than the required five test wafers in gold, and scrape off the gold from the additional test wafers.

Tang would then take the gold and sell it to an unknown buyer, and share some of the sale proceeds with Lee.

Lee tested Tang’s suggestion and found it was true – she could use her finger to peel off the gold from the test wafer.

Said Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Zhi Jie: “(Lee) knew no one would check the number of test wafers that she placed in the (machine) during the qualification check, and she would not be easily discovered for sending more test wafers to be coated with gold than required.”

The pair carried out their plan between Jan 3, 2019 and April 29, 2021.

In 2019, Lee removed 1,717.5g, or approximately 1.7kg of gold from the additional test wafers. The next year, the amount of gold she stole went up to 2,085g, or approximately 2kg.

In total, Lee stole about $286,110 worth of gold over the two years.

Lee, who had been earning a monthly gross salary of $1,653, said she would receive $5,000 to $6,000 from Tang every two months for her role in the plan.

In April 2021, another operator discovered a chunk of gold – made up of thin layers of gold peeled off test wafers – in a gowning room at the company and alerted the management.

Lee was called up for an interview, as she was one of the machine operators. During the interview, she admitted to her acts. She had no means to repay the company.

Tang had resigned from ST Microelectronics and returned to China before the crime was discovered. She has not been dealt with.

DPP Tay sought 26 to 30 months’ imprisonment for Lee, highlighting that the offences were premeditated and the value of the property stolen was high.

The prosecutor also noted that Lee had cooperated with investigations, both with the company and the police.