Oct 23, 2009
4 years for Nur Azilah Ithnin the teenage loan-shark runner
By Elena Chong, Court Correspondent
Nur Azilah torched shoe racks and doors, splashed paint and scribbled graffiti outside flats.
A TEENAGE girl will now spend the next four years behind bars for her first criminal offences - helping loan sharks do their dirty work.
Nur Azilah Ithnin, who was chased out of her home and physically abused by her father, was on the payroll of two loan sharks whom she knew only as 'Storm' and 'Seven'.
They paid the 16-year-old up to $50 for each debtor she harassed and $150 more for every place she set on fire.
She committed a dozen such offences until she was caught on June 22.
The heavy sentence meted out to the young girl comes in the wake of an alarming surge in the number of young offenders arrested for loan-sharking offences.
Citing police figures, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohamed Faizal said last month that there had been a sharp rise over the past two years of youth involvement in loan shark syndicates.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
[email protected]
4 years for Nur Azilah Ithnin the teenage loan-shark runner
By Elena Chong, Court Correspondent
Nur Azilah torched shoe racks and doors, splashed paint and scribbled graffiti outside flats.
A TEENAGE girl will now spend the next four years behind bars for her first criminal offences - helping loan sharks do their dirty work.
Nur Azilah Ithnin, who was chased out of her home and physically abused by her father, was on the payroll of two loan sharks whom she knew only as 'Storm' and 'Seven'.
They paid the 16-year-old up to $50 for each debtor she harassed and $150 more for every place she set on fire.
She committed a dozen such offences until she was caught on June 22.
The heavy sentence meted out to the young girl comes in the wake of an alarming surge in the number of young offenders arrested for loan-sharking offences.
Citing police figures, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohamed Faizal said last month that there had been a sharp rise over the past two years of youth involvement in loan shark syndicates.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
[email protected]
