According to The Straits Times, two employees from sneaker stores in Singapore, AW Lab and Foot Locker, have been accused of taking bribes amounting to S$19,864 in exchange for insider information to help reserve highly coveted sneakers.
Xavier Goh Yixuan, 30, an assistant store manager at Foot Locker has been accused of having accepted S$12,189 in bribes over 36 occasions from Meng Fanxuan, 27, and two other individuals who wanted to obtain confidential information on upcoming limited edition sneaker drops between August 2020 and January 2021.
Meng allegedly also paid S$1,500 in bribes to AW Lab store associate Muhammad Faiz Amy Jasman, 28, over five occasions in order to be able to reserve limited edition sneakers before they dropped.
Over seven occasions, Goh also accepted S$2,380 from Bryan Fong between August 26 and December 1, 2020. Fong also gave S$3,795 to Faiz between September 11 and October 18 last year. All bribes seem to have been given in exchange for a chance to reserve pairs of limited edition sneakers.
If convicted, these individuals could face a fine of S$100,000 and jail time of up to five years.
Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) is urging sneaker stores that handle highly coveted drops to implement procedures in areas like procurement and internal audit to prevent incidents of employees accepting bribes or getting involved in corrupt practices.