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[Vultan]

Another passenger jailed for theft onboard flight

Published on Jul 25, 2013

Tigerair passenger Li Xiangyang (above), who stole a laptop bag from another passenger onboard a flight, was jailed for nine months on Thursday, July 25, 2013. -- PHOTO: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE

By Elena Chong

A Tigerair passenger who stole a laptop bag from another passenger onboard a flight was jailed for nine months on Thursday. Li Xiangyang, 44, a businessman from China, is the second man this week to have been given the stiffest sentence so far for such an offence.

He admitted to stealing the laptop bag containing a laptop and credit cards from Mr Peh Boon Chong when the Tigerair flight was enroute from Guangzhou to Singapore on July 5.

Mr Peh, 43, a Singaporean, had placed the bag in the overhead compartment above his seat. Later, when he tried to retrieve his bag, he found it missing and informed a flight stewardess. The flight attendant managed to find it in the overhead compartment nine rows behind the victim's seat. She asked around and a passenger told her that he saw, Li, who sat next to him, step out and take the victim's laptop bag and move towards the last row of the flight.

On Tuesday, China national Yue Liangfu, 32, was sentenced to nine months' jail for a similar offence on board a SilkAir flight last month. During Yue's sentencing, Senior District Judge See Kee Oon said that statistics showed an alarming rise in the number of reported cases. Li could have been jailed for up to three years and/or fined.

 

[Vultan]

Re: Man gropes her, then punches her


China national fined over forged certificates offence

Published on Jul 26, 2013
By Elena Chong

A young China national was fined $5,000 for being party to a criminal conspiracy to sell forged education certificates to interested parties. He Lingting, 21, who came to Singapore about seven years ago to study, is the first among four people to be convicted of the offence.

A district court heard in April last year, while she was with her boyfriend, Xu Changqing, 28, they met Xu Rui, 26, whom she later learnt was in the business of selling forged educational certificates to students in Singapore. Last December, she placed an advertisement on her mobile phone chatline application about these certificates.

In January this year, she received a response from a person later identified as Liang Yan Wei, 27, who seemed interested to buy the certificates. She negotiated with Liang via text messages on the cost of the purchase. Liang asked her to send him some samples of the forged certificates. She e-mailed him the documents on Jan 8.

Liang later arranged to meet her on the pretext of wanting to buy the certificates. When she turned up at Kovan MRT station however, she was arrested by the police. Her lawyer Ismail Atan said her client's then boyfriend was a bad influence on her and she had not profited from her actions. In imposing the fine, District Judge Eddy Tham took into account the role played by her as well as the possibility that she had been unduly influenced by her then boyfriend.

 

[Vultan]

Viet woman, bogus hubby jailed 6 months

Theresa Tan
The Sunday Times
Tuesday, Jul 30, 2013

SINGAPORE - Vietnamese national Le Thi Thu, 29 (above, on the right), was still in Vietnam when her search for a bogus Singaporean husband began in March this year.

She found her man and married him in April, but both were caught in May and jailed last month.

Thu first contacted a Vietnamese woman known only as Nguyen, who charged her $10,000 to set up a sham marriage. Part of the sum was meant for the man.

On top of the $10,000, Thu would have to pay him $300 each month for acting as a sponsor for her visit pass applications. It is not known what Thu did for a living.

She paid an initial $2,000 and not long after was told she should be at the Registry of Marriages in Singapore in April.

Three days before her date at the registry, she flew here and paid Nguyen the remaining $8,000.

The night she arrived, she was introduced to Ang Nguan Kok (above, on the left), 44, at a Joo Chiat coffee shop. He was a divorced odd-job worker with a son and had agreed to go through with the sham marriage.

He had been approached by another Vietnamese woman, whose identity is unknown, to act as Thu's husband in return for $5,000.

In April, the pair registered their marriage. They did not live together or consummate the union.

In May, they were arrested by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officers at the ICA Building while applying for a visit pass. Both were sentenced to six months' jail last month.

 

[Vultan]

Broke worker offers marriage for $3,000

Theresa Tan
The Sunday Times
Tuesday, Jul 30, 2013

SINGAPORE - Odd-job worker Mohamad Azmi Ahmad (above, on the right), 31, was broke and a friend told him he could make some money by going through a sham marriage with a foreign woman who wanted to be in Singapore.

He thought of Vietnamese national Tran Thi Lieu (above, on the left), 26, whom he got to know last year.

She had come to Singapore on holiday, had an affair with a married Singaporean man, and returned home.

Azmi contacted Lieu and suggested going through a sham marriage if she paid him $3,000.

She would then be able to stay in Singapore, and he assured her there would be no sex involved and they could live apart.

She agreed, though it is not clear why she wanted to be in Singapore.

In January, she flew here and was given a visit pass valid for four days. On the day her pass was due to expire, the pair registered their marriage.

They then went immediately to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), and she got a two-week extension on her visit pass.

When they went back later to seek another extension, both were arrested for making a false statement to get an extension.

They were each sentenced to six months' jail.

In the end, Azmi received only $300. They were arrested before he got the remaining $2,700.

 

[Vultan]

Jail, cane for molesting 4 women

Khushwant Singh
ST
Monday, Aug 05, 2013

Dumped by his girlfriend, 22-year-old Chew Yew Heong decided to go after women who resembled her - slim and around 1.65m tall.

In a spree of terror across five days in March, the Malaysian attacked and molested four such women, aged between 17 and 22.

After he was arrested on March 17, it was also found that he had overstayed here for more than a year.

When he was sentenced yesterday to six years and 21/2 months in jail and 15 strokes of the cane, District Judge Mathew Joseph called Chew's conduct "absolutely despicable". It was a "strange way to remember his ex-girlfriend", he added.

Investigations revealed that when Chew came to Singapore through the Woodlands Checkpoint on Jan 2 last year, he was issued a four-day pass.

But he continued staying here illegally to be with his girlfriend.

She then broke up with him.

From March 11 this year, the unemployed Chew would loiter in the Tampines area late at night and follow women from bus stops.

He then molested them at the ground floor lift lobby or inside the lift.

In one particular incident on March 15, he trailed a 17-year-old student after she alighted from a bus at about 11.30pm.

In the lift at her block of flats, she pressed the button for the 12th storey. He pressed for the 11th.

When the only other person in the lift got off on the fourth storey, Chew secretly pressed the seventh, eight and ninth floor buttons, so as to give him more time alone with his victim.

When the lift stopped at the seventh floor, he walked past the teenager as if he wanted to leave, but spun around and grabbed her chest with both hands.

By the time the startled teen had struggled free, the doors had closed. She retreated to the back of the lift and tried to use her phone to call for help but he snatched it away.

He then hugged her and touched her chest again. When she started screaming, he covered her mouth.

But she managed to escape and run down the staircase when the lift doors opened on the ninth floor.

For each act of molestation, Chew could have been jailed for up to two years, fined or caned.

The penalty for overstaying for more than 90 days is a jail term of up to six months and at least three strokes of the cane.

 

[Vultan]

Woman caught leaving S'pore illegally by hiding behind curtain in lorry

AsiaOne
Wednesday, Aug 14, 2013

SINGAPORE - A 29-year-old woman was caught trying to leave Singapore illegally by hiding behind a veiled curtain in a lorry.

On Aug 13, at around 12.20pm, a Malaysian-registered lorry driven by a lone male driver was stopped for checks by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the cargo zone of Tuas Checkpoint.

During the checks, officers noticed the driver's cabin was partitioned by a curtain. After drawing them apart, they found a woman curled up within the cramped space.

The 54-year-old Malaysian driver and the 29-year-old Sri Lankan woman were immediately placed under arrest.

Investigations are on-going and the vehicle has been detained and is liable for forfeiture.

They could face a jail term up to six months and minimum three strokes of cane, for the offence of overstay or illegal entry. They could face a fine up to $2,000, a jail term up to six months, or both, for the charge of overstay.

[email protected]

 

[Vultan]

Updated: 08/16/2013 13:26 | By Channel NewsAsia

Vietnamese wife gets jail term while searching for husband in S'pore

SINGAPORE: A Vietnamese wife who was searching for her husband in Singapore has landed herself in jail after violating immigration rules.

Nguyen Thi Mac Phuc was sentenced to a year's jail for entering Singapore in December 2012 without the permission of the Controller of Immigration.

The 27-year-old needed the controller's permission to come to Singapore as she overstayed in 2010 and was repatriated.

The court heard that the accused was worried and wanted to locate her Vietnamese husband in December last year.

She paid a man US$1,500 to enter Malaysia via Cambodia and Thailand by hiding in a lorry.

When she arrived in Malaysia, she was instructed to hide in a cargo container and managed to get to Singapore.

The accused was arrested in April this year at a chalet in East Coast Parkway by immigration officers.

In pleading for leniency, the defence said the accused was anxious about the whereabouts of her husband, Tran Dinh Hieu, so she came looking for him.

Tran Dinh Hieu is currently serving a 16-month sentence for customs and immigration offences and will be released in January 2014.

The couple has a five-year-old daughter.

The defence stressed that there is no one to take care of the child, and urged the court to give the minimum sentence of 12 months' jail.

The court has allowed Nguyen Thi to visit her husband for one last time in early September, before she starts serving her sentence. - CNA/xq

 

[Vultan]

Customer services officer jailed 7 months for misusing $22,000 of employer's money

Published on Aug 16, 2013

A 25-year-old woman was on Friday, Aug 16, 2013, jailed seven months for using her employer's money for personal expenses back home. -- ST POSED PHOTO: WANG HUI FEN

By Ian Poh

A 25-year-old woman was on Friday jailed seven months for using her employer's money for personal expenses back home.

Cajala Carla Joyce Bahni, a Filipino, misappropriated $21,986.82 in cash from healthcare group Parkway Shenton over an eight-day period in February this year.

Instead of depositing the daily cash proceeds for those days into the company's bank account, the customer service officer at a health screening centre in Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre took the money and used it for family expenses in the Philippines.

Bahni tried to cover her tracks by depositing cash proceeds from the following days, but her act came to light after she was unable to continue with the cover-up.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[Vultan]

Man caught trying to leave Singapore in lorry under a pile of cardboard boxes

Published on Aug 19, 2013

A 40-year-old man (above) was arrested last Friday after he was found trying to leave Singapore illegally by hiding beneath a pile of cardboard boxes in a lorry. -- PHOTO: IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY

By Jalelah Abu Baker

A 40-year-old man was arrested last Friday after he was found trying to leave Singapore illegally by hiding beneath a pile of cardboard boxes in a lorry.

The Malaysian driver, 39, and his co-driver, 33, were also arrested.

At about 12pm that day, officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority at the Woodlands Checkpoint directed a departing Malaysia-registered lorry for routine checks, and made the discovery.

The trio are currently under investigation for immigration offences. The vehicle used in the offences has been detained.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[Vultan]

Lovesick wife sneaks into S’pore illegally

Phuc was given a one-year sentence for entering Singapore illegally to visit her husband.

Khushwant Singh
The Straits Times
Monday, Aug 19, 2013

SINGAPORE - A woman who could not bear to be apart from her husband sneaked into Singapore illegally and visited him in jail.

Vietnamese national Nguyen Thi Mai Phuc paid nearly $2,000 to people smugglers, who hid her in a lorry and cargo container.

But the 27-year-old is now preparing to start a jail term of her own after being handed a one-year sentence.

Phuc was deported from Singapore in 2010 after overstaying her visa, the court heard.

Her husband then came here to work illegally.

The couple lost contact and Phuc decided to come and find him.

She paid US$1,500 (S$1,910) to a people smuggler known as Ah Tin, who arranged for her to travel through Cambodia and Thailand hidden in a lorry.

She then crossed from Malaysia by road in a cargo container.

Once in Singapore, Phuc paid fortnightly visits to her husband, who had been jailed for 11/2 years for immigration and customs offences.

But she was arrested in April this year at the Goldkist Beach Resort in East Coast Parkway.

The Vietnamese national pleaded guilty to entering Singapore illegally.

She was joined in court on Friday by her five-year-old daughter, who flew in from their homeland with a relative.

Phuc will get to see her husband in prison on Sept 2, after defence lawyer Choo Si Sen asked the court to allow the visit on "very humanitarian and compassionate grounds".

She is due to start her jail term the next day.

The maximum penalty for entering Singapore illegally is three years in jail and a $6,000 fine.

 

[Vultan]

Woman charged with eight counts of abusing Indonesian domestic worker

Published on Aug 20, 2013
By Elena Chong

A woman employer was charged on Tuesday with eight counts of maid abuse.

Ngoa Choi Yin, 47, a Singapore permanent resident, is said to have caused hurt to Ms Siti Nurbayah, an Indonesian domestic worker, at her flat in Upper Bukit Timah Road between May and October last year.

Most of the charges accuse her of slapping the maid. Ngoa also allegedly pounded and bit the maid.

The alleged abuse began sometime after May 12 last year when she allegedly used her elbow to knock the maid's upper arm.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[Vultan]

Chief engineer of ship fined and jailed for bunkering offences

Published on Aug 22, 2013
By Khushwant Singh

THE Russian chief engineer of a ship was fined $30,000 and jailed for two weeks for accepting a US$8,400 (S$10,752) bribe from a cargo officer and submitting false documents to his employers to cover up the shortfall in the marine fuel.

Antonov Sergey, 34, was also ordered to pay a penalty of $8,640, which constitutes the US$6,750 of the bribe that was not recovered.

A district court heard on Thursday that the investigations by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) revealed that Sergey's ship - the MT Front Splendour - had ordered 2,700 metric tonnes of marine fuel. However, the Russian struck a deal with Jason Choo Soo Beng, then a cargo officer with fuel supplier Sea Hub Energy, to accept 120 metric tonnes less.

Choo, 42, then got Victor Loh Tuck Seng, 35, a surveyor, to falsify the sounding reports on the amount of fuel in the ship's tanks. He also got Sea Hub boatman Lam Tat Fei, 34, to help him sell the 120 tonnes of fuel to an unknown buyer at US$150 per tonne. He then handed Sergey $8,400, who then gave US$400 to Loh for making the false readings in the sounding reports. CPIB officers were able to recover only $1,250 from Sergey.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[Vultan]

Construction worker jailed for commercial sex with underage prostitute

Published on Sep 02, 2013
By Elena Chong

A construction worker was jailed for 11 weeks on Monday for commercial sex with an underage prostitute.

Zhou Mingfeng, 47, admitted paying $70 for the sexual services of the 17-year-old girl at Lai Ming Hotel in Geylang Road on May 27. Both are from China.

A district court heard that the girl arrived here with one Tang Huisheng, 36, her pimp, on May 16 to make money. On May 27, Zhou was walking around Lorong 23 Geylang looking for prostitutes when the girl approached him and offered sexual services to him. They agreed on a price of $70 and had sex in the hotel room.

The girl was arrested near Lorong 22 Geylang on June 1 by Criminal Investigation Department officers on suspicion of providing commercial sex while underage.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

 

[Vultan]

US man jailed for molestion in Singapore

September 4 2013 at 03:05pm

Singapore - A 24-year-old American tourist was sentenced to nine months in prison on Wednesday for a series of sexual offences against women at backpacker hostels in Singapore.

Michael Sylvester Williams Jr faced multiple charges of molesting and invading the privacy of five women between April and June this year.

District Judge Eddy Tham said the stiff jail sentence took into account the fact that the offences took place while the victims were in a “vulnerable position”.

Court documents said one victim, a 23-year-old China national, caught Williams filming her with his mobile phone from an adjacent cubicle while she was showering.

At another hostel, Williams was caught stroking the buttocks of a 29-year-old Singaporean woman while she was sleeping.

In another incident, a Polish female tourist staying at a hostel felt her blanket being lifted while she was asleep on June 13 and someone gently stroking her back.

Lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu told reporters after the hearing that he had been assigned by the US embassy to hold a “watching brief” after Williams rejected legal representation.

“We are glad that the sentence of caning was not imposed,” he said.

Singh said the American had expressed genuine remorse and said he was “drunk and foolish” when he committed the offences.

He had refused legal representation because he wanted to complete his sentence and return to the Philippines where he lives with his wife, the lawyer said. - AFP

 

[Vultan]

Updated: 09/06/2013 11:15 | By Channel NewsAsia

Five more charged with having paid sex with underage escort

SINGAPORE: Another five men were charged on Friday with having paid sex with a girl under the age of 18. The men, all Chinese nationals, are aged between 35 and 42.

On Wednesday, 14 men -- aged between 22 and 75 -- were charged with having paid sex with the same girl.

All the incidents took place in May at various hotels in the Geylang area. The men paid sums of between S$40 and S$150 for the girl's sexual services.

The girl, who cannot be named, was 17 years old at the time.

Out of the 19 men who have been charged, 14 have indicated they intend to plead guilty.

Four other men were recently jailed between 11 and 12 weeks for paid sex with the same girl.

A fifth man's case is still pending.

This is the third vice ring to surface since the high-profile online vice ring case, involving 51 men, broke in 2012.

If found guilty of obtaining the sexual services of a person under 18 years old, the men could be jailed seven years and fined.

The girl's pimp, 37-year-old Chinese national Tang Huisheng, was also charged in June.

He faces seven charges that include living off part of the earnings of the girl and abetment to obtain paid sex with an underage girl.

Tang has indicated that he plans to claim trial. - CNA/ac/xq

 

[Vultan]

Updated: 09/09/2013 20:35 | By Channel NewsAsia

Woman jailed 5 weeks for scalding co-tenant with hot water

SINGAPORE: A Chinese national was on Monday jailed five weeks by a district court after she splashed hot water on her co-tenant during a dispute.

The incident happened in September 2011 in a flat that 61-year-old Qi Xinling and the victim, 23-year-old Guan Qiuyue, shared at Jalan Bukit Ho Swee.

The court heard that a dispute broke out between them over a tenancy agreement.

Qi told the court that Ms Guan had violated the terms of the tenancy agreement by bringing men back to the house.

Shortly after, Ms Guan returned to her room and discovered there was no Internet connection.

She then went to the living room and saw that the Internet cable was unplugged.

Ms Guan then turned off the television which Qi was watching, which sparked off another dispute.

The court heard that Guan threw water at Qi, and in retaliation, Qi splashed a flask of hot water at Guan, scalding her.

Medical reports showed that Guan suffered first-degree burns to the left side of her face, abdomen and upper limbs, as well as second-degree burns to her neck and upper chest.

Doctors later confirmed that the scars, including those on her face, are likely to be permanent.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Chen Zhida urged the court to impose a custodial sentence, pointing out that Qi's actions were a "deliberate move to get back at the victim over the dispute".

Noting that the injuries suffered by Guan were "severe", he also said that Qi would have known the water was "dangerously hot" as she had started boiling the water only moments before.

In mitigation, Qi, who has been in Singapore for the past 12 years and was a Chinese tutor, said she was sorry for what she had done.

She tearfully asked the court for leniency, adding that she had no previous criminal offences.

Qi also suffered minor injuries in the struggle, which a medical report confirmed were abrasions.

During the sentencing, the District Judge said that Qi had committed a "horrific act" which had lifelong consequences for the victim.

For committing a negligent act, Qi could have been jailed up to two years and fined. - CNA/nd

 

[Vultan]

Updated: 09/11/2013 19:39 | By Channel NewsAsia

Eight men jailed for theft onboard aircraft

SINGAPORE: Eight Chinese nationals were on Wednesday jailed between 9 and 16 months by a district court in five separate cases of theft on board an aircraft. The incidents took place on SilkAir and Tiger Airways flights in July and August 2013.

The pair who received the stiffest sentences were 33-year-old construction worker Ren Jun and 34-year-old farmer Li Xingwang, both from Henan province. They were each jailed 16 months.

Looking for a way out of their financial difficulties, the pair devised a scheme to commit theft on board planes as they heard it was a "lucrative opportunity", and agreed to split the loot.

They booked a series of short-haul budget flights to destinations like Hong Kong, Kota Kinabalu, and Singapore.

The court heard that on July 11, they boarded a SilkAir flight from Kota Kinabalu to Singapore. During the flight, Ren removed a haversack that did not belong to him from the overhead compartment and emptied it of foreign currencies amounting to some S$200.

They later went back to China, and booked another series of short-haul flights.

On July 18, the men again boarded a Singapore-bound SilkAir flight from Kota Kinabalu. This time, Li removed a haversack that did not belong to him from the overhead compartment, and stole foreign currencies amounting to almost S$600.

The pair were later arrested in Singapore.

The offences in the four other cases were similar, with the men either stealing bags or money from the bags, which had been placed in the overhead compartments. In two of the incidents, the amount stolen exceeded S$2,000.

In July, 32-year-old Chinese National Yue Liangfu was the first to be sentenced to nine months' jail for stealing a trolley bag on board an aircraft -- the stiffest punishment to be meted out at the time. - CNA/ac

 

[Vultan]

Passenger jailed for molesting female taxi driver

Published on Sep 24, 2013
By Elena Chong

A storekeeper was jailed for four months on Tuesday for molesting a female taxi driver. Malaysian Vikneswaran Veera Muthu, 20, boarded the 45-year-old driver's taxi with a friend in Bedok on May 31 and directed her to go to MacPherson.

Along Pan-Island Expressway, he was seen moving his body towards the driver's seat, and all of a sudden, leaned forward towards the victim's seat and put his hand through the gap on the right and grabbed her breast. She shouted at him and he released his grip.

The victim then noticed that he was still leaning forward and that both his hands were near her chest area. She then informed Vikneswaran's friend, Mr Mohamed Arif Mohamed Nor, 27, who was also sitting behind, what had happened. Mr Mohamed Arif immediately pulled Vikneswaran back.

Vikneswaran apologised to the victim, who then locked the taxi doors and drove both men to the nearest police post to lodge a report. Vikneswaran, who pleaded guilty, could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any of the combined punishments.

 

[Vultan]

Updated: 10/01/2013 18:27 | By Channel NewsAsia

Man jailed for punching cabby, fined for damaging vehicles

SINGAPORE: A drunk American chef who repeatedly punched a taxi driver and damaged a motorcycle and a taxi door, was on Tuesday sentenced to two weeks' jail and fined S$1,000.

38-year-old Garfield Gordon Angove III was also ordered to pay the taxi driver, Chua Poh Soon, S$3,500 for assaulting him at Lucky Chinatown on May 25 this year, at about 9pm.

On the same night before the attack, Angove, who was unemployed at the time, also got into a dispute with bike rider Mohammad Fariz Muhammad Yusman, even though it was unprovoked.

Angove became angry, tried to attack Mr Mohammad Fariz and kicked the victim's motorcycle.

The motorcycle then hit a taxi belonging to Mr Seah Hock Tean.

The cost of the damage to the two vehicles totalled S$600 and for that, Angove was fined S$1,000.

Two of four charges were taken into consideration for sentencing purposes. - CNA/nd

 

[Vultan]

20 months' jail for woman who went on shopping spree with stolen credit cards

Published on Oct 02, 2013

Dressed in designer wear, Shahna Liu Mei Li, 39, would breeze into Marina Bay Sands Hotel pretending to be a guest. But her real intention was to steal and cheat. -- PHOTO: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE

By Khushwant Singh

Dressed in designer wear, Shahna Liu Mei Li, 39, would breeze into Marina Bay Sands Hotel pretending to be a guest. But her real intention was to steal and cheat.

She would filch the credit cards of patrons at the swimming pool and use these to splurge on herself at nearby boutiques. The favourite purchases of the 39-year-old Indonesian included sunglasses, earrings, shoes and clothes.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Chew Xin Ying said that the total amount Liu cheated or tried to cheat on the three occasions she went to the hotel between Sept 28 and Jan 28 came up to $29,230.

Liu was sentenced yesterday to a year and eight months in jail for 31 counts of stealing, cheating, and attempted cheating, and one count of lying to the police. She had pleaded guilty to all the charges.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.