Men Misbehaving

Suan Futt Yeo

Description

The author of Wild Women Do on crimes committed by females in Singapore returns with a new collection on local crime. This time round, it's the men who are up to no good and exposed here are cases of murders, sexual demeanours and fraud. The spurned lover who sets his former girlfriend on fire; the police staff sergeant who commits a double murder in Kovan; the fatal accident that caused 400 men to riot in Little India; two good friends who kidnapped a millionaire's mother. These are the stories of the men who have committed heinous crimes and run afoul of the law.

Sujets

• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 25 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814634748
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

MEN MISBEHAVING
Men who commit murder, fraud and other crimes in Singapore
2014 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Yeo, Suan Futt, author.
Men misbehaving : men who commit murder, fraud and other crimes in Singapore / Yeo Suan Futt. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2014]
pages cm
ISBN : 978-981-4561-09-9 (paperback)
e-ISBN : 978 981 4634 74 8
1. Criminals - Singapore. 2. Murderers - Singapore.
3. Swindlers and swindling - Singapore. 4. Crime - Singapore. I. Title.
HV7100.67
364.373095957 - dc23 OCN883873865
Designed by Benson Tan
Cover photograph by Per Hardestam ( www.freeimages.com )
Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Public Disservice: The Hidden Hand in the Till
Chapter 2 Rape: Monsters in our Midst
Chapter 3 Beast
Chapter 4 Kovan Double Murder
Chapter 5 His Father s Killer
Chapter 6 Ram Tiwary: Sydney Double Kill
Chapter 7 Trash Trio
Chapter 8 The International
About the Author
Introduction

MAN CAN T STOP MISBEHAVING: we ve robbed, raged and rampaged; taking our hearts desire through stratagem, deceit and sheer opportunity, or else by threat, force and violence.
In this volume are stories of men who have stepped beyond the bounds of decency, and those caught in the nightmare of another s making. Among them are civil servants who betrayed the public trust, men who abused their positions to prey on the very people they were supposed to protect, and an overseas student who woke up to the sight of his friends bloodied beyond recognition.
Some of these perpetrators were caught within days of their crime, while others quietly robbed and betrayed for years before their wrongdoing was uncovered, while yet another waited eight years for a ruling to be overturned. At the end of the day, crime doesn t pay. But some will never learn.
CHAPTER 1
Public Disservice: The Hidden Hand in the Till

We have prevented corruption from becoming a way of life in Singapore, and succeeded in keeping Singapore clean. This differentiates us from many other countries and is a distinctive part of what makes us Singapore.
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean , at a parliamentary sitting on 15 August 2013





A NATIONAL IDEOLOGY CAN be defined as a body of common beliefs held by a group of people that makes them a nation. Besides multi-racial co-existence and a fastidious work ethic, an important element of Singapore s national ideology would also include an incorruptible civil service enshrined in the national psyche. This is something that sets us apart and comes as instantly to mind as the ban on chewing gum when people mention Singapore. It is an essential ingredient of Singapore Inc. that has allowed us to progress in bold steps from Third World to First.
The fair distribution and efficient administration of public goods and services is our pride and near conceit; hence the blow to our confidence in 2010 when it emerged that two executives of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), working in collusion with the private sector as well as scam firms, had filched the state of more than $12 million over a period of two-and-a-half years. The irony was all the more stinging when that very same year, Berlin-based Transparency International rated Singapore jointly with Denmark and New Zealand as the least corrupt nations in the world (Singapore dropped to fifth place the following year and in 2012).
There was a public outcry. Inquiries were held, rules and procedures were reviewed and new ones were instituted. Independent review panels were also set up and the books were opened as the public sector went into damage control mode. When perpetrators are caught, it is a sign that the anti-corruption measures work. But there is always the underlying suspicion that reported cases are but the visible tip of an iceberg.
These fears were shortly realised with almost poetic symmetry when two more cases emerged. Where the SLA case had corrupt officials in the same department working in collusion, these were two unrelated cases happening simultaneously - in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs - across the height of the civil service hierarchy. One involved a junior clerk and the other, a medalled head of department.
MHA: LIEW CHEE MENG, AGE 37
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), also known as the Home Team , is an umbrella group of agencies tasked with maintaining law and order within Singapore. These agencies include the police force, internal security, immigration and checkpoints, anti-narcotics, civil defence and casino regulation authorities.
Liew Chee Meng joined the MHA in July 2003 as a junior clerical officer in the Strategic Planning and Development Division (SPDD). Here, he was tasked with buying and processing payments for prizes used in activities and competitions organised by his department.
As a junior clerk, Liew would not have had much autonomy in any matter. Instead, his supervisor would have to authorise purchases of particular prizes for specific activities. Liew would then make the necessary submissions to the finance department, and the latter would then release the funds for the procurement. Nothing could be more routine than this sequence of procedures followed in millions of offices worldwide, spanning the public and private sectors. But after a few years of this routine work, Liew started to get creative.
CUT, PASTE, SEND
Perhaps the senior director overseeing Liew was too bogged down by other duties. Instead of his senior initiating the purchases, Liew would send him emails listing the items to be purchased, and approval would be granted via email. Ecologically, this was the more responsible course. However, the use of emails instead of signed documents allowed Liew to cut and paste his senior director s email responses and signature to forge purchase approvals, which were then accepted by the finance department.
Liew took care to keep his purchases under $3,000. Purchases below this sum could be made directly from vendors. He bought gift vouchers, which were about as good as cash; and he would always collect the vouchers personally when they were ready. This would go on from January 2007 to 2011, during which time he made 90 forgeries and swindled the country of $617,087 in gift vouchers from Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Capitaland Retail Management and Isetan.
Over a four-year period, this would have required at least 206 purchases of just under $3,000 each time; around once a week, every week for four years. His senior director would not have any idea of this since Liew was sending out the emails with his cut-paste email authorisation; but no one in the finance department had any clue either. How the SPDD would be organising so many activities (certainly more than most major retail groups hold contests for their customers) and why the prizes would be so plentiful and of such high value for a public organisation are questions that probably got lost in the sheer scale of transactions that passed through the finance department.
In any case, Liew lived large with his vouchers. No one would take a second look at a junior clerk - he was but one of faceless thousands manning the lowest (but no less necessary) rungs of the huge bureaucratic machinery that makes Singapore hum. Yet, Liew was able, on six documented occasions, to breeze into luxury boutiques and blow at least $15,000 on purchases made with public funds.
THE HIGH LIFE
27 May 2010 must have been a particularly rough day at work - Liew sought solace in a shopping spree at Takashimaya, snagging three handbags from Bottega Vaneta and Gucci, a pair of Gucci shoes and a timepiece from French jewellery brand Mauboussin. The bill came up to a whopping $46,200 - fully paid for in gift vouchers, and more than what he and many Singaporeans earn in an entire year.
Other purchases from his shopping sprees included several Hermes bags, including one priced at $15,900, an Hermes scarf worth $1,250 and three rings from Bulgari.
Just a month after his $46,000 blow-out at Takashimaya, Koh Seah Wee and Lim Chai Meng from the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) were arrested for swindling the government of $12 million. One wonders if Liew was spooked by this, but apparently not: he continued his forgeries for a good half a year before he was eventually caught.
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