ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – Two men were hit with a SGD17,000 fine yesterday after being caught during a raid in March 2023, leading to the largest seizure of vape products in Singapore.
A tip-off on March 28, 2023 led to the raid on a car park in Sembawang in March 28, 2023, with the men caught with the vape products.
Leads from the car park led Health Sciences Authority (HSA) officials to raid a warehouse in Mandai the following day, where they uncovered more than 194,500 vape products worth over SGD3.1 million that had been prepared for sale.
It surpassed the SGD2.2 million worth of such products seized in a 2021 operation.
Yeow Wei Feng, 27, was fined SGD9,000 after pleading guilty to two charges of possessing 240 sets of assorted vaporisers and 504 assorted pods. Two similar charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.
Muhammad Hailey Muizam, 23, was fined SGD8,000 after pleading guilty to two charges of possessing 404 sets of assorted vaporisers and 250 assorted pods. A similar charge was taken into consideration for his sentencing.
The court heard that Yeow and Hailey were hired through messaging app Telegram to work as couriers in a syndicate involved in the trade of vape products.
Yeow made around SGD10,000 from delivering the illicit goods between November 2022 and March 2023, while Hailey made around SGD2,400 from making such deliveries from January to March 2023.
On March 28, 2023, the two men were instructed to collect parcels from a multi-storey car park in Sembawang at Block 592, Montreal Link.
While they were sorting the parcels, the police appeared. Caught by surprise, the men tried to flee in vehicles but were stopped by road blocks the police had placed on a lower floor of the car park.
Several people were arrested in the car park that night. Five suspected runners aged between 20 and 33 were detained after the raid at the warehouse.
Other than Yeow and Hailey, five others were charged in court in February over their alleged involvement in the case.
The five, whose cases are pending, are: Tham Jia Wei, 34, Goh Zheng Lei, 28, Tan Teck Jin, 21, Tan Ping Kang, 28, and Sin Poh Meng Ivan, 29.
Malaysian national See Hong Jian, who was involved in the Mandai warehouse operations, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail and fined SGD16,000 on February 1.
