Two charged with shoplifting at Sheng Siong, allegedly spotted by store’s facial recognition tech

In an unrelated case, Leong is said to have stolen items including drinks and meat items worth around $90 in total from another Sheng Siong outlet in Sin Ming Avenue, near Upper Thomson Road between May 27 and Aug 12.

Police said that one of the supermarket’s store managers detained her on Oct 1 following an alert from its facial recognition technology.

Tan and Leong were among multiple people who were handed shoplifting charges on Nov 20.

One of them, Christina Jiyoon Han, 24, is accused of stealing a Labubu doll worth $250 from a shop at Plaza Singapura shopping centre in Orchard Road on April 21.

Tan’s case will be mentioned again in court in December, while the cases involving Leong and Han have been adjourned to January.

The first six months of 2025 saw an

with 2,097 cases compared with 2,013 within the same period in 2024.

The police had earlier said that compared with other major retailers, Cold Storage and Sheng Siong reported a higher average number of shop theft cases per outlet.

They also had the highest increases in shop theft cases compared with the same period in 2024.

The police said in August that the increase at Sheng Siong is likely due to the use of its facial recognition technology to identify offenders.

The supermarket chain has added the technology to its security camera system since April 2024 to better identify and catch shoplifters. Suspects are typically identified only after they leave the store with unpaid items.

The staff trawl through security footage and identify the culprit, whose face is then flagged in the system.

When that person visits a Sheng Siong outlet again, the system alerts store managers. The staff monitor the suspects and stop them if they try to shoplift again.

Suspects’ faces are removed from the system only after they are arrested.