£55k fine | John Lewis worker steals over £45,000 worth of stock to sell online

A former John Lewis worker has been jailed for over two years and ordered to pay back more than £55,000 after he was caught stealing from the retail store.

The John Lewis stockroom worker, Lai Uong, had worked at the department store’s Bluewater site for more than 17 years, and was caught stealing during an internal investigation after the consistent disappearance of tech items.

The investigation included a test purchase from the website Uong had been using to sell the stolen goods, which led officers to carry out a full search of Uong’s property. From this search, the authorities found Apple products with a retail value of £33,799.

Uong was in prison for two years and eight months from 2022 when he admitted stealing the goods. But in a recent hearing, he has been ordered to pay back £45,298 to John Lewis and a further £10,416 to other agencies and has six months to pay this back or risk a further 18 months in prison.