Ex-auxiliary cop jailed for taking bribes from peddler
An auxiliary police officer obtained bribes totalling $750 from a peddler selling illegal sex enhancement drugs (SEDs) over three times in July 2022.
The prosecution said that Thiru Murugan Shanmugam, 30, got the cash from Chinese national Chen Dongliang, 33.
As part of the deal, he was expected to refrain from taking enforcement action against the older man.
Thiru, who is no longer an auxiliary police officer with security firm Certis, pleaded guilty to a graft charge and was sentenced to six months’ jail on May 31.
The Malaysian was also ordered to pay a penalty of $750, which is the total amount of bribes obtained.
Two Singaporean men linked to this case were dealt with in court earlier.
One of them, Mohammad Hafizudin Hanapiah, 30, was a security officer employed by Dynamiz Security and contracted to Certis.
Hafizudin, who is no longer working for Certis, was sentenced to three months and two weeks’ jail in January after he pleaded guilty to a graft charge.
On May 7, Mohd Aris Jalil, 66, another former auxiliary policeman for Certis, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust and was sentenced to six weeks’ jail.
Chen’s case is pending.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jonathan Tan told the court that the Singapore Police Force (SPF) had formed teams to patrol places where foreign workers gather.
Among other duties, officers from the Foreign Workers Management teams were tasked to take action against offences such as littering and the sale of illegal SEDs.
Thiru, Aris and Hafizudin were in a team known as “Golf 3”, and attached to Geylang Neighbourhood Police Centre. The team was tasked to patrol in the Geylang area.
Some time on or before May 2022, Thiru would approach the SED peddlers he encountered during the patrols and obtain bribes from them.
In return, he would not take enforcement action against them.
He would first seize the SEDs from a peddler, according to protocol, but would not hand over all of the seized drugs to the SPF and would retain a portion instead.
The court heard in earlier proceedings that Hafizudin would snap a picture of the retained drugs and send it to Thiru.
For the current case, DPP Tan said: “After the rest of the team leaves, Thiru would then secretly approach the SED peddler in person to offer to return certain amount of the seized SEDs to him if the SED peddler agreed to pay a specific sum of money to Thiru.
“Thiru would show the photo of the seized SEDs to the peddler. This sum of money would be a few times higher than the cost price of the SEDs.”
The peddler would place some cash at a certain location, as instructed by Thiru through messages on platforms including WhatsApp. Thiru would collect the cash later.
He would then tip off the peddler of upcoming raids, helping the peddler to escape.
DPP Tan said that in July 2022, Thiru obtained $750 in bribes from Chen.
In August 2022, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau received information about the graft-related offences and Thiru was arrested the following month.
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