A man has been arrested after he allegedly hid beer inside bottled water cartons and tried to pay the lower price at a hypermarket in Bukit Mertajam. Staff became suspicious at the checkout on 21 October and opened the cartons, finding beer where bottled water should have been.
The man was said to have resealed the cartons before taking them to the cashier, so that the barcode on the outer box would be scanned as mineral water. The SAYS report, citing China Press, said 18 packs of beer were concealed inside cartons from several bottled water brands, with six cans in each pack.
Employees stopped the transaction and the hypermarket called the police, who arrived at the scene and arrested the man. Photographs and video of the incident spread quickly on social media, among them an image of the suspect being led into a police car and pictures of opened cartons beside rows of confiscated cans.
The outlet was a Lotus’s store in Bukit Mertajam and the beer was Tiger Beer, The Rakyat Post reported. Staff were said to have grown suspicious over the weight of the cartons, cardboard that appeared to have been taped shut again, and the man’s behaviour at the counter.
A photograph of a receipt totalling RM754.02 for 18 items also circulated online. The same slip carried the words TRAINING MODE, a label used when a cashier system is being tested or used for staff training. That detail left it unclear whether the receipt recorded a live sale or was printed later to total up the goods seized at the counter.
Penang police had not issued a formal statement on the case at the time of writing. The exact sequence of events and any charge the man may face remain unconfirmed, and the figures circulating online rest on photographs and accounts shared by people at the store.
Hypermarkets price goods by the barcode printed on the outer carton, which is why a resealed box can pass a checkout if the cashier does not open it. Staff at large stores are trained to check weight, packaging and behaviour whenever a carton looks disturbed.
The SAYS report put the value of the beer at about RM700. Under Malaysian procedure, a suspect held over a cheating allegation is normally produced before a magistrate so that investigators can apply for a remand order while inquiries continue.
If the case reaches court, cheating is defined under Section 415 of the Penal Code, which covers dishonestly inducing a person to deliver property. Section 417 sets the punishment at up to five years in jail, a fine, or both.
The arrest has drawn wide attention online, with the footage of the cartons and the receipt shared across several platforms before any official account of the incident was released.
