<TABLE id=msgUN border=0 cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD id=msgUNsubj vAlign=top>Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Grad was a runner for a loan shark </TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>Nov-28 10:50 pm </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 4) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>25103.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>Nov 29, 2009
Grad was a runner for a loan shark
He needed money to pay off study loan, and later worked undercover for the police to clear dad's debts
<!-- by line -->By Terrence Voon
He is a university graduate who now owns a successful company.
But almost a decade ago, Mr Sim (not his real name) was swimming with loan sharks - first as a runner, then a debtor, and finally an undercover agent for the police.
Last week, new laws were proposed to crack down on illegal moneylending, targeting both syndicates and borrowers.
The news prompted the 35-year-old to come forward and share his unusual story about life on both sides of the loan sharking issue.
Mr Sim said he started working as a runner for a syndicate because he needed to repay his $20,000 study loan from a bank after returning from Australia with a business degree.
'I couldn't find a job and some of my friends who had connections said there was easy money to be made,' he explained over lunch at a coffee shop in Chinatown last week.
Through the help of some friends already working for the gang, Mr Sim was roped in.
His key duties: delivering cash to borrowers and taking payments from them, either face-to-face or using pre-arranged money drops.
The latter, he revealed, were often as innocuous as a fire extinguisher box or an incense burner. These were kept in plain sight, watched at all times by lookouts.
Borrowers would place their payments - usually folded neatly inside a towel or raincoat - in the designated drop. When the coast was clear, the money would be picked up by runners and change hands several times before it reached the syndicate leaders.
These methods of transferring money are uncommon these days, said Mr Sim.
Modern loan sharks now use a tangled web of bank accounts, electronic transfers and computerised databases to manage their 'clients' and evade detection.
The commission that Mr Sim earned as a runner in the old days was barely enough to cover his study loan.
Each of his transactions with borrowers - there could be up to eight a day - earned him only about $15.
In order to boost his earnings, he resorted to 'shaking down' those who had already paid their loans in full.
Working with another runner, he threatened and harassed these unfortunate borrowers, saying their payments were never received.
More often than not, the terrified victims would cough up the extra cash, which would be split between him and his accomplice.
Mr Sim, a secret society member in his teens, gave up loan sharking after a year, when he found a proper job and paid off his loan.
But just two years later, he plunged back into the dark trade, this time to help his father.
His father, he explained, was an obsessive gambler who racked up more than $200,000 in debts with four loan sharks after losing heavily in bets on football matches and horse-racing.
When his father could not pay up, the lenders resorted to familiar tactics such as padlocking the gate of the family flat with a chain, splashing urine on the door and pouring glue into his letterbox.
These were dreadfully familiar to Mr Sim, who had committed similar acts in the past.
'It got so bad that my dad quit his job and did not dare to come home,' he said. 'I hated my father for doing this to my family, but I knew I had to help him.'
In desperation, Mr Sim - the elder of two children - turned to a contact in the police force.
An elaborate plan was hatched, in which he was to take over all his father's debts while secretly working with the authorities, he said.
The hope was that the moneylenders would back off if they knew he was under police surveillance.
Over the next few months, Mr Sim would be tailed by the police when he made loan payments at money drops.
Officers would swoop in and 'arrest' him, in full view of any loan shark runners in the vicinity, before bundling him into a waiting patrol car.
He would be released later at the police station, often with a pat on the shoulder or a word of thanks.
He recounted: 'It was humiliating to be arrested in public. The cops punched me in the abdomen so hard that I felt like vomiting.
'I knew it was all for show, but it was hard to do it over and over again.'
The lies and constant fear of being exposed as a police collaborator took a psychological toll on him.
'I became paranoid about everything around me,' he said. 'I was afraid to go out alone, I couldn't sleep, and I was even scared to answer phone calls from unfamiliar numbers.'
During this period, Mr Sim did not dare to return home, choosing to stay with friends. He turned to drink, in the hope that alcohol would numb his anxiety.
After nine months, his efforts paid off. The loan sharks - who feared being uncovered by the police - waived their crippling interest fees and, in some
cases, did not ask for further payments.
With his help, he said, the police broke up two syndicates, arresting three runners and a loan shark lieutenant in the process.
It took Mr Sim another four years to pay the rest of his father's debts, using earnings from his full-time job.
'The people who borrow money, not the loan sharks, are the root of the loan shark problem,' he said, referring to the proposed law which targets borrowers who give false addresses to illegal moneylenders.
Such borrowers can be jailed for up to one year.
'The only way to eliminate loan sharks is to make borrowing illegal, full stop,' he added. 'If there is no demand, there won't be a supply.'
After his traumatic experience with loan sharks, Mr Sim said he was spurred on to 'work hard and stay clean'.
Today, he runs his own company and lives in a private apartment with his family.
He has severed all ties with illegal moneylenders while his father has given up gambling.
Not even his girlfriend, nor his closest friends, is aware of his colourful past.
But his fears have not entirely gone away.
'Even today, I'm afraid that the loan sharks would somehow find out that I worked with the police and come to look for me,' he said.
'I don't regret what I did but it's something I have to live with for the rest of my life.'
[email protected]
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Grad was a runner for a loan shark
He needed money to pay off study loan, and later worked undercover for the police to clear dad's debts
<!-- by line -->By Terrence Voon
He is a university graduate who now owns a successful company.
But almost a decade ago, Mr Sim (not his real name) was swimming with loan sharks - first as a runner, then a debtor, and finally an undercover agent for the police.
Last week, new laws were proposed to crack down on illegal moneylending, targeting both syndicates and borrowers.
The news prompted the 35-year-old to come forward and share his unusual story about life on both sides of the loan sharking issue.
Mr Sim said he started working as a runner for a syndicate because he needed to repay his $20,000 study loan from a bank after returning from Australia with a business degree.
'I couldn't find a job and some of my friends who had connections said there was easy money to be made,' he explained over lunch at a coffee shop in Chinatown last week.
Through the help of some friends already working for the gang, Mr Sim was roped in.
His key duties: delivering cash to borrowers and taking payments from them, either face-to-face or using pre-arranged money drops.
The latter, he revealed, were often as innocuous as a fire extinguisher box or an incense burner. These were kept in plain sight, watched at all times by lookouts.
Borrowers would place their payments - usually folded neatly inside a towel or raincoat - in the designated drop. When the coast was clear, the money would be picked up by runners and change hands several times before it reached the syndicate leaders.
These methods of transferring money are uncommon these days, said Mr Sim.
Modern loan sharks now use a tangled web of bank accounts, electronic transfers and computerised databases to manage their 'clients' and evade detection.
The commission that Mr Sim earned as a runner in the old days was barely enough to cover his study loan.
Each of his transactions with borrowers - there could be up to eight a day - earned him only about $15.
In order to boost his earnings, he resorted to 'shaking down' those who had already paid their loans in full.
Working with another runner, he threatened and harassed these unfortunate borrowers, saying their payments were never received.
More often than not, the terrified victims would cough up the extra cash, which would be split between him and his accomplice.
Mr Sim, a secret society member in his teens, gave up loan sharking after a year, when he found a proper job and paid off his loan.
But just two years later, he plunged back into the dark trade, this time to help his father.
His father, he explained, was an obsessive gambler who racked up more than $200,000 in debts with four loan sharks after losing heavily in bets on football matches and horse-racing.
When his father could not pay up, the lenders resorted to familiar tactics such as padlocking the gate of the family flat with a chain, splashing urine on the door and pouring glue into his letterbox.
These were dreadfully familiar to Mr Sim, who had committed similar acts in the past.
'It got so bad that my dad quit his job and did not dare to come home,' he said. 'I hated my father for doing this to my family, but I knew I had to help him.'
In desperation, Mr Sim - the elder of two children - turned to a contact in the police force.
An elaborate plan was hatched, in which he was to take over all his father's debts while secretly working with the authorities, he said.
The hope was that the moneylenders would back off if they knew he was under police surveillance.
Over the next few months, Mr Sim would be tailed by the police when he made loan payments at money drops.
Officers would swoop in and 'arrest' him, in full view of any loan shark runners in the vicinity, before bundling him into a waiting patrol car.
He would be released later at the police station, often with a pat on the shoulder or a word of thanks.
He recounted: 'It was humiliating to be arrested in public. The cops punched me in the abdomen so hard that I felt like vomiting.
'I knew it was all for show, but it was hard to do it over and over again.'
The lies and constant fear of being exposed as a police collaborator took a psychological toll on him.
'I became paranoid about everything around me,' he said. 'I was afraid to go out alone, I couldn't sleep, and I was even scared to answer phone calls from unfamiliar numbers.'
During this period, Mr Sim did not dare to return home, choosing to stay with friends. He turned to drink, in the hope that alcohol would numb his anxiety.
After nine months, his efforts paid off. The loan sharks - who feared being uncovered by the police - waived their crippling interest fees and, in some
cases, did not ask for further payments.
With his help, he said, the police broke up two syndicates, arresting three runners and a loan shark lieutenant in the process.
It took Mr Sim another four years to pay the rest of his father's debts, using earnings from his full-time job.
'The people who borrow money, not the loan sharks, are the root of the loan shark problem,' he said, referring to the proposed law which targets borrowers who give false addresses to illegal moneylenders.
Such borrowers can be jailed for up to one year.
'The only way to eliminate loan sharks is to make borrowing illegal, full stop,' he added. 'If there is no demand, there won't be a supply.'
After his traumatic experience with loan sharks, Mr Sim said he was spurred on to 'work hard and stay clean'.
Today, he runs his own company and lives in a private apartment with his family.
He has severed all ties with illegal moneylenders while his father has given up gambling.
Not even his girlfriend, nor his closest friends, is aware of his colourful past.
But his fears have not entirely gone away.
'Even today, I'm afraid that the loan sharks would somehow find out that I worked with the police and come to look for me,' he said.
'I don't regret what I did but it's something I have to live with for the rest of my life.'
[email protected]
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