A Myanmar national will remember for a long, long time that ICA stands for 'I Check All' and not 'Imitation Cards Accepted'. His 1-man forgery set-up was stopped in its tracks when ICA officers arrested him on 21 Apr for forging Student's and Dependent Passes. ICA officers had earlier (at about 1500 hours) in the day apprehended a female Myanmar national for being in possession of two forged Dependent Passes (DPs) and one laminated black and white photocopy of a DP. The arrest of the 40-year old female Myanmar national (who was also an overstayer) quickly led to the apprehension of the 25-year old male Myanmar national, who had supplied the forged cards to her.

2 The male Myanmar national led our officers to his place of residence at Buffalo Road. A thorough search of the premises by our ICA officers uncovered the following items in the house:

a) 16 forged Student's Passes (STPs);
b) 4 forged DPs;
c) 12 coloured photocopies of STPs;
d) 2 black and white photocopies of STPs; and
e) stationery used to forge the cards such as highlighter, pen and glue.

3 Preliminary investigation revealed that the male Myanmar national had forged the cards by using the stationery highlighted above ({item (e)} on the coloured photocopies of the Passes and laminating them thereafter. Another illegal immigrant, a 39-year old male PRC national was also found and arrested in the flat. All of them were referred to the Police for further investigation.

4 The Singapore authorities take a serious view of attempts to forge immigration cards and other related documents. For forgery of passes or in possession of forged passes, the offender faces an imprisonment for a term of up to 7 years and shall also be liable to a fine. For illegal entry, the offender faces a jail term of up to 6 months plus a minimum of 3 strokes and in lieu of caning, a fine not exceeding S$6,000.

END OF NEWS RELEASE

Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
22 Apr 04