Chinese national jailed for stealing credit card from passenger on Malaysia-Singapore flight

Jiang Yangbo, a Chinese national, was a passenger on board AirAsia flight AK719 departing Kuala Lumpur on May 16 when he removed a fellow passenger’s blue laptop bag from the overhead compartment.

The victim, Jin Chengjie, a 36-year-old Chinese national working in Singapore, was seated one row in front of him.

Placing the bag on his lap, Jiang rummaged through it, took Jin’s Citibank credit card and put it into his right rear pocket, court documents show.

He then returned the laptop bag to the overhead compartment and went to the bathroom, before returning to his seat.

However, another passenger seated on the same row as Jiang saw what happened, and noticed after the plane landed at Changi Airport that Jiang had only a black sling bag with him.

Upon realising the laptop bag belonged to Jin, the passenger told him that he saw Jiang taking something from the bag. The victim soon realised his card was missing and quickly cancelled the card.