SINGAPORE: Two managers of entertainment outlets were fined by a court on Thursday (Oct 6) for sending messages to chat groups to tip other workers off about police raids.
Disco and karaoke outlet operations manager Goh Wei Jie, 35, was fined S$10,000. He pleaded guilty to three counts of intentionally obstructing the course of justice, with another two similar charges taken into consideration.
General manager of a nightlife entertainment outlet Raymund Reuben Mervyn, 43, was fined S$7,000 for one count of intentionally obstructing the course of justice, with a second similar charge considered.
Both men said they would pay their fines in full.
The court heard that the existence of these chat groups came to light in April 2019, when a Malaysian man was detained at Woodlands Checkpoint for failing to declare that he had on him cash of more than S$20,000.
A check of his phone revealed two chat groups: Rolex Movement and Night Owl. These chats were used by security officers or employees of night entertainment outlets in Singapore to send each other tip-off messages about ongoing or upcoming police raids.
The members would include details such as licence plate numbers of police vehicles, the size of the raiding teams and the locations, using code words and abbreviations that the other members understood.
Further chat groups named UncleValet and Pao Pao Bing Tuan were uncovered in February 2020, when three nightclub employees acting as police lookouts were arrested.
Goh sent multiple tip-off messages to the Night Owl chat group between January 2019 and April 2019. His messages include “Cvs at gdm complex”, referring to police officers in civilian clothes at Golden Mile Complex, and “open light”, referring to enforcement operations being carried out.
In another set of messages, he stated the licence plate numbers of police vehicles that were at the loading bay of Golden Mile Complex, indicating “big ops around Beach Road and Jalan Besar” and “3 lay up the van”.
The prosecutor asked for a fine of S$10,000 for Goh, while his lawyer asked for a fine of between S$8,000 and S$10,000. The prosecutor referred to a line in the mitigation plea, where the defence said Goh voluntarily left the chat group in May 2019.
She said that investigations began in April 2019, so no weight should be given to him leaving the group a month later.
For Mervyn, he sent a message to the Rolex Movement group on Apr 10, 2019, saying: “Geylang Lor 7 raid, 7 girls arrested.”
In a charge taken into consideration, he wrote to the same group: “My contact informed me it’s CNB operation next 3 days island wide”.
His lawyer asked for a fine of S$6,000, saying that his client was not the mastermind of the chat group and that he had sent only two messages and not five, compared with the case where an accused person received a S$8,000 fine for five messages.
For intentionally obstructing the course of justice, the men could have been jailed for up to seven years, fined, or both.