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Narcotics Biscuits, Anyone?
Biscuits are amongst one of the favourite tea-time snacks and their tins are particularly useful and often recycled as storage containers. For an Indonesian lady, she decided to make use of her old biscuit tin to smuggle narcotics through Singapore’s borders. The attempt was foiled by the vigilance of the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the Singapore Cruise Centre.
2 On 10 April 2008 at about 1500hrs, the X-ray screening officer observed anomalies in the scanned image of a biscuit tin. Instead of images of biscuits in the tin, the officer saw silhouettes of capsules. Upon further checks by the ICA officer, three packets of white tablets were found wrapped tightly together and labelled as “Subutex” in the biscuit tin.
3 A total of 210 Subutex tablets, packaged into three slabs of seven tablets each, were found. The 27-year-old Indonesian female admitted ownership of the tablets. She claimed that her father had bought the tablets from a private clinic in Batam and instructed her to bring the tablets to her grandmother who was living in Singapore. She further claimed that her grandmother needed the tablets as she was suffering from back pain.
4 The case was referred to the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) for further investigations. If convicted, the subject will face a minimum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment and 5 strokes of the cane.
5 Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's security. The enhanced security checks are critical to our nation’s security. We have tightened our security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands. The same methods of concealment used by smugglers may be used by terrorists to smuggle arms and explosives to carry out attacks in Singapore. We seek the public’s continued understanding and cooperation, and would like to warn against smuggling unlawful goods into Singapore.
Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
11 April 2008
2 On 10 April 2008 at about 1500hrs, the X-ray screening officer observed anomalies in the scanned image of a biscuit tin. Instead of images of biscuits in the tin, the officer saw silhouettes of capsules. Upon further checks by the ICA officer, three packets of white tablets were found wrapped tightly together and labelled as “Subutex” in the biscuit tin.
3 A total of 210 Subutex tablets, packaged into three slabs of seven tablets each, were found. The 27-year-old Indonesian female admitted ownership of the tablets. She claimed that her father had bought the tablets from a private clinic in Batam and instructed her to bring the tablets to her grandmother who was living in Singapore. She further claimed that her grandmother needed the tablets as she was suffering from back pain.
4 The case was referred to the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) for further investigations. If convicted, the subject will face a minimum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment and 5 strokes of the cane.
5 Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's security. The enhanced security checks are critical to our nation’s security. We have tightened our security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands. The same methods of concealment used by smugglers may be used by terrorists to smuggle arms and explosives to carry out attacks in Singapore. We seek the public’s continued understanding and cooperation, and would like to warn against smuggling unlawful goods into Singapore.
Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
11 April 2008