Chinese man accused of helping to steal diamond ring from Singapore pawn shop

Luo Yi, a 50-year-old Chinese national, is linked to two alleged accomplices, Lu Jingnan and He Yuanlin.

Luo is accused of abetting the theft of the diamond ring from a ValueMax pawn shop on July 16 last year.

According to Lu’s past court hearing, the theft took place a few days after Lu scouted the shop. Lu then returned to the location with Luo, while He stayed outside.

While Luo spoke to a male employee about gold jewellery, Lu got a female employee to retrieve diamond rings from a glass display case.

Luo allegedly positioned himself in a way that blocked the male employee from seeing Lu when Lu made a signal to him.

While the female employee was distracted, Lu placed the 3-carat diamond ring in his pocket and left the shop, before taking a taxi to Woodlands Checkpoint.

Luo and He left the mall in different directions.

Lu and He then left Singapore by bus via Woodlands Checkpoint. The pair were later arrested in Malaysia.

Luo left Singapore via Changi Airport and was at large for several months. He was later arrested and remanded from November 2023, according to court records.

On Friday, Luo was set to plead guilty. He appeared in court via video-link from his place of remand.

He had two questions for the court. He wanted to know the difference between his amended charge and the previous charge, and whether his new charge could be amended to say that he had unintentionally aided the theft.

After explaining the difference between the charges, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew told him that the charge could not be amended that way, as the offence of abetment by aiding requires that the abetment be intentional.

Luo then told the court via a Mandarin interpreter: “I am a law-abiding citizen in China, and I’m a legal representative