Gambling Debts Led Watch Repairman to Pawn Rolex Watches Worth S$42,000, Report Says

A freelance watch repairman in Singapore has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment after misappropriating three Rolex watches belonging to a luxury watch-shop owner and pawning them, Shin Min Daily News reported through Lianhe Zaobao on October 10, 2026.

The three watches were worth about S$42,000 (Singapore dollars) in total, according to the report.

The repairman, a 36-year-old Malaysian, was a Singapore permanent resident at the time. He did freelance work for a luxury watch shop on Orchard Road, fixing expensive watches. The newspaper gave his name in Chinese and noted that it was a phonetic rendering.

Chasing gambling losses

What drove him, investigators found, was gambling. He had run up debts and was trying to win back what he had lost, the report said. It does not say how much he owed, or where or how he gambled.

According to the charges described in the report, he misappropriated the watches on three dates: February 14, November 9 and November 11, 2023.

The S$42,000 figure is what the watches were worth, not what he received for them. In one pawn transaction described in the report, he took a Rolex Daytona to a pawnshop in Toa Payoh and received S$10,000.

The pawnbroker raised the alarm

It came to light on December 10, 2023. That day, the pawnbroker told the watch shop’s owner that the repairman had been bringing the shop’s watches in to pawn.

The owner confronted him, and he signed a written admission on the spot, acknowledging that he had pawned watches that were waiting to be repaired, according to the report. The owner then went to the police.

“The most basic thing a son can do”

In court, he spoke for himself before he was sentenced. The matter had weighed on him for three years, he said, and left him deeply ashamed.

He said he was not refusing to compensate the owner. He could only find odd jobs, he said, and could not afford to repay.

He also said the case had broken his relationship with his family, and that he wanted it settled so he could tell his parents the outcome. Doing so, he said, was “the most basic thing a son can do,” according to a translation of the newspaper’s account.

The judge sentenced him to four months in jail and allowed him to start serving the sentence on October 22, the report said. It does not say whether the watches were recovered.

Gambling debts in other theft cases

Gambling has come up in other theft cases Game Empress has covered. In West Virginia, an animal clinic manager admitted stealing US$624,600 and said he lost it all gambling.

In Singapore, people who are worried about their own or someone else’s gambling can call the National Council on Problem Gambling helpline at 1800-6-668-668, which is open every day from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Singapore time, according to the council’s website.