A Singaporean man fled to Malaysia in the 1990s to evade national service, using four Malaysian fake passports to enter and exit Singapore 876 times over five years. On Friday (11th), he was sentenced to 8 months and 18 weeks in prison.
Shin Min Daily News reported that the accused, Luo Rongqing (60, transliteration), faced a total of 12 charges for violating immigration laws. On the 11th, he pleaded guilty to 5 of them, while the remaining charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
As early as the early 1990s, the accused used a Singapore passport to travel to Malaysia to evade national service and stayed there without returning to Singapore.
The Singapore passport the accused held expired on June 12, 2000.
● Wanted to Visit Family in 2006
In 2006, the health of the accused’s mother was deteriorating, and he wanted to visit his family in Singapore. However, he was worried about being arrested by the authorities for not having completed national service.
Therefore, the accused did not want to use his Singaporean identity to enter Singapore and paid someone in Kuala Lumpur 45,000 ringgit to obtain a Malaysian passport.
Although the passport had the accused’s photo affixed, the personal information was altered to reflect the identity of “Zhang Baoyan,” born on November 1, 1966.
Subsequently, in 2008, 2009, and 2010, the accused obtained three more Malaysian passports in the same manner, paying 10,000 ringgit for each.
The accused first used the initial passport to enter Singapore on August 7, 2006, and frequently used these four passports to travel between Singapore and Malaysia, with the last instance occurring on May 2, 2011, when he used the fourth passport to enter.
Investigations revealed that the accused used four Malaysian passports to enter and exit Singapore a total of 876 times. Between March and May 2011, the accused also made false statements to Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers, claiming his information was accurate and that he had never used passports under any other name to enter Singapore.
● Arrested on August 28, 2024
Authorities discovered the accused held multiple identities and launched an investigation in September 2023, arresting him on August 28 last year.
The prosecution pointed out that the accused deliberately fled Singapore to avoid national service and hid his identity to evade detection by the authorities.