SINGAPORE: A club bouncer was on Wed (Aug 17) sentenced to 17 weeks’ jail and fined S$3, 000 to get offences including obstructing the course of proper rights.
Aaron Chua Jun Hao, 27, was a part of a network associated with nightclub employees who used chat organizations to tip each other off about police raids in order to escape detection.
This individual was sentenced after pleading guilty to six counts of obstructing the span of justice, and one count number each of affray plus causing hurt by a rash act.
Thirteen other charges were considered for sentencing.
Regulators first discovered the tip-off chat groupings in April 2019, when they detained a man at Woodlands Gate for failing in order to declare cash he previously on him.
A check of the man’s mobile phone showed 2 WhatsApp chat organizations called “Rolex Movement” and “Night Owl”.
Then within February 2020, police arrested three membership employees who were performing as police lookouts. Investigations revealed 2 more WhatsApp talk groups, “UncleValet” plus “Pao Bing Tuan”.
Users of these chat groupings mostly comprised bouncers and other club employees. They used the groupings to alert one another about raids at their clubs, permitting other members to take steps to prevent the recognition of offences at their workplaces.
The tip-off messages included information like police vehicle licence plate numbers, areas of enforcement bank checks, sizes of raiding teams and the particular unit or division conducting the raid.
The users used code phrases and abbreviations, like referring to non-uniformed observance officers as “cv”, said Deputy General public Prosecutor Lee Wei Liang.
Chua, a bouncer from various clubs, was obviously a member of the “Night Owl” and “UncleValet” chat groups.
He admitted in order to sending 60 tip-off messages to the “Night Owl” chat team between January plus April 2019, and four such communications to “UncleValet” between January and February 2020.
In his messages, he determined officers from the Secret Societies Branch from the Criminal Investigations Division, including singling a single out by title.
Court documents stated that there were continuing law enforcement operations near the nightclub when Chua sent the messages.
This individual did it “knowing that members of the said chat group will likely take steps to prevent the particular detection of accidents in the vicinity of the said law enforcement operations”.
Eight other supposed members of “Night Owl”, aged 29 to 48, are usually set to plead guilty on Friday.
The eight : Abdul Hadi Zainuddin, Muhammad Rashidi Rashid, Muhammad Rasyidi Safiee, Daniel Seet Joo Tong, Brandon Chung, Ang Whay Chong, Wilson Soon Jien Yang and Lim Poh Kian – were among 22 men charged with obstruction of justice in July.
Chua was also convicted of unrelated offences of traveling his car toward a man and hitting him from the back again three times, and getting part of a battle between two groupings drinking at a bar in Katong.
Anyone convicted of intentionally obstructing the course of justice might be jailed for up to seven years, fined or both.