Arnont Kemtrong: Australia Post worker sentenced for stealing parcels
When parcels containing everything from Dyson cleaners to ukuleles went missing in the post there was confusion at the Strawberry Hills Post Office. However, veteran employee had been taking the items. He’s now learnt his fate in court.
Central Sydney
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A veteran Australia Post worker who stole $20,000 worth of illegally-imported cigarettes and intercepted packages en route to Sydney homes has been sentenced.
Among a plethora of items taken by Arnont Kemtrong from the Strawberry Hills Post Office was a Gasmate BBQ, a Canon printer, Ray Ban sunglasses, 11 large cartons of toothpaste and a ukulele.
Police found the items in his Waterloo unit and car, as well as 1000 packets of cigarettes, sent from Japan and China through the busy Redfern post office.
Police started surviellence of Kemtrong and witnessed him selling 96 cartons of the illegally-imported cigarettes to a woman outside the Civic Hotel in Pitt St.
Kemtrong, 57, had worked at Australia Post for 16 years, before he was suspended from his job in January.
He told police he was selling the items for money, which he sent back to his family in Thailand.
He was convicted at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday of five charges related to the theft and sale of the goods, which he had previously pleaded guilty to.
Kemtrong was slapped with a two-year good behaviour bond for the two counts of appropriating mail receptacles, a two-year Conditional Corrections Order (CCO) for receiving stolen property, and a two-year CCO for the charges of unlawfully obtaining goods and dealing with the property proceeds of crime.
He will also need to serve 100 hours of community service.
Suspicion fell on Kemtrong when a Dyson vacuum cleaner and several bottles of wine did not reach their intended destination.
“In July 2019 Australia Post staff at Strawberry Hills Post Office noticed a trend of missing parcels from the area of the Post Office used for storing the return to sender mail and parcels,” police documents read.
The Australia Post Security Group soon correlated rosters and shift logs, notifying the police of their suspicions as to Kemtrong’s involvement in October.
On January 23, police captured Kemtrong on CCTV leaving the post office with contraband cigarettes which he had placed inside a Woolworths shopping bag.
He made full admissions to stealing the items over a six-month period.
The Cleveland St post office had been receiving large quantities of cheap and illegally-imported cigarette consignments from China and Japan.
When postal workers discovered these illegal packages, they were supposed to hand them over to Border Force officers.
But Kemtrong kept the parcels for himself.