Public Prosecutor v Yunos bin Taib

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wong Choon Ning
• Judgment Date: 22 December 2006
• Neutral Citation: [2006] SGDC 297
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 02 February 2007
• Year: 2006
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPP Chew Chin Yee
• Defendant Counsel: Raymond Tan (TH Tan Raymond & Co)
• Citation: [2006] SGDC 297

22 December 2006 Judgment reserved.

District Judge Wong Choon Ning:

1 The accused pleaded guilty before me to the following five charges :-

DAC 43444/2006 (Exh. P6A)

“You,

Name : Yunos Bin Taib Male 50 years
NRIC : S1177289-G Date of Birth : 01.01.1956
Nationality : Singapore Citizen

are charged that you, sometime between August 2004 and October 2004, in Singapore, did engage with Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu (S7620758E), Mohamad Safar Bin Samat (S1679529A), one Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus (S1808421-Z) and others unknown, in a conspiracy to do a certain thing, namely to commit an offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, and in pursuance of that conspiracy and for the doing of that thing, an act took place on the 27^th day of October 2004, to wit, at or about 8.00 pm, somewhere in the vicinity of Blk 489B Tampines Street 45, Singapore, Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus handed over jointly to Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu and Mohamad Safar Bin Samat the key to a black BMW X5, bearing a false Malaysian registration number plate MBB 6097, chassis number WBAFA120XOLWO2005, engine number 2667552, valued at about S$90,000/-, which you had reason to believe to be stolen property, and thereafter the said Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu and Mohamad Safar Bin Samat proceeded to Changi North Crescent where Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu loaded the said BMW X5 into a 40 ft container bearing serial number AHGU 4211943 and secured it in preparation for the said BMW X5 to be exported to a foreign country, and you have thereby abetted the offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 109 read with Section 414 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

DAC 43445/2006 (Exh. P7A)

“You,

Name : Yunos Bin Taib Male 50 years
NRIC : S1177289-G Date of Birth : 01.01.1956
Nationality : Singapore Citizen

are charged that you, sometime between August 2004 and October 2004, in Singapore, did engage with Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu (S7620758E), Mohamad Safar Bin Samat (S1679529A), one Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus (S1808421-Z) and others unknown, in a conspiracy to do a certain thing, namely to commit an offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, and in pursuance of that conspiracy and for the doing of that thing, an act took place on the 27^th day of October 2004, to wit, at or about 8.00 pm, somewhere in the vicinity of Blk 489B Tampines Street 45, Singapore, Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus handed over jointly to Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu and Mohamad Safar Bin Samat the key to a BMW 530i, silver in colour, bearing a false Malaysian registration number plate WLQ 5215, chassis number WBANA72050B186998, engine number 30293160, valued at about S$311,000/-, which you had reason to believe to be stolen property, for the purpose of loading the said BMW 530i into one of 3 containers bearing serial numbers AHGU 4211943, LKMU 3165169 2210 and LKMU 1111349 in preparation for the said BMW 530i to be exported to a foreign country, and you have thereby abetted the offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 109 read with Section 414 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

DAC 43446/2006 (Exh. P8A)

“You,

Name : Yunos Bin Taib Male 50 years
NRIC : S1177289-G Date of Birth : 01.01.1956
Nationality : Singapore Citizen

are charged that you, sometime between August 2004 and October 2004, in Singapore, did engage with Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu (S7620758E), Mohamad Safar Bin Samat (S1679529A), one Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus (S1808421-Z) and others unknown, in a conspiracy to do a certain thing, namely to commit an offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, and in pursuance of that conspiracy and for the doing of that thing, an act took place on the 27^th day of October 2004, to wit, at or about 8.00 pm, somewhere in the vicinity of Blk 489B Tampines Street 45, Singapore, Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus handed over jointly to Mohamad Sadikin Bin Mohamad Sabtu and Mohamad Safar Bin Samat the key to a Toyota Harrier, gold in colour, bearing a false Malaysian registration number plate WJV 5218, chassis number MCU15-0211182, engine number 1MZ-1139382, valued at about S$88,000/-, which you had reason to believe to be stolen property, for the purpose of loading the said Toyota Harrier into one of 3 containers bearing serial numbers AHGU 4211943, LKMU 3165169 2210 and LKMU 1111349 in preparation for the said Toyota Harrier to be exported to a foreign country, and you have thereby abetted the offence of dishonestly disposing stolen property, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 109 read with Section 414 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

DAC 43447/2006 (Exh. P9A)

“You,

Name : Yunos Bin Taib Male 50 years
NRIC : S1177289-G Date of Birth : 01.01.1956
Nationality : Singapore Citizen

DAC 44559/2006 (Exh. P17)

“You,

Name : Yunos Bin Taib Male 50 years
NRIC : S1177289-G Date of Birth : 01.01.1956
Nationality : Singapore Citizen

are charged that you, on the 30^th day of November 2004, at or about 5.45 pm, at Blk 645 Jalan Tenaga, Deck 4 multi-storey carpark, Singapore, together with Farzilah Binti Mohd Shaik and Daeng Masri Bin Saren, and in the furtherance of the common intention of you all, did dishonestly retain stolen property, to wit, one blue Toyota Harrier motor vehicle bearing registration number WKP 8888 with chassis number MCU350005661, valued at S$116,299/-, belonging to one Su Bee Leng, knowing the same to be stolen property, and that you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 411 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

2 The accused admitted without qualification to the Statement of Facts (Exh. A). The accused also admitted to another twelve charges under Section 414 of the Penal Code, and consented to them being taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

3 After hearing the mitigation plea made by the learned defence counsel and in consideration of all the circumstances of the case, I sentenced the accused to 22 months’ imprisonment for each of the five charges on which he was convicted. I further ordered that the sentences of imprisonment for the sixth, seventh and seventeenth charges were to run consecutively, whilst the sentences of imprisonment for the eighth and ninth charges were to run concurrently with that for the sixth charge. The total sentence of imprisonment was also backdated to commence from the accused’s date of remand in prison.

4 The accused, being dissatisfied with the order of sentence, now appeals against it. The accused is currently serving sentence.

Facts of the case

5 The Statement of Facts (Exh. A) and the written mitigation plea (D1) revealed that the accused, through his work as a housing agent, had established contacts in the Indonesian police and customs department. From 1996 onwards, he had brokered property deals involving Indonesian buyers, who were usually either businessmen or civil servants working in the police and customs departments. Over the years, through his dealings, the accused became close to many of these Indonesian clients.

6 The accused was subsequently enlisted by one Indonesian, by the name of Edwin, to use his contacts in the Indonesian customs department to assist Edwin to import motor cars into Batam. The accused agreed to make this “special request” to his contacts in the Indonesian customs department and soon an “agreement” was reached, pursuant to which Edwin started to import motor cars to Batam.

7 In July 2004, Edwin enlisted the accused to help him and a Malaysian supplier export Malaysian registered cars to countries, using Singapore as the country of origin. The accused was aware that the cars in question had been stolen in Malaysia. He nevertheless agreed to help the Malaysian syndicate in return for monetary payment. The stolen cars would be delivered to Singapore from Malaysia and, thereafter, they would be shipped from Singapore to other countries.

8 Sometime in early August 2004, the accused recruited one Zulkiffli Bin Mohamad Yunus (hereinafter referred to as “Zulkiffli”) to help him run this operation. Zulkiffli was hired by the accused to provide “stuffing services”. Under this arrangement, the accused would contact Zulkiffli whenever he had cars to be “stuffed” (that is, loaded) into containers for export out of Singapore. The stolen cars would be driven from Malaysia into Singapore. Acting on the accused’s directions, the various drivers of the stolen cars would contact Zulkiffli once they arrived in Singapore. Zulkiffli would then meet the drivers who would hand him the keys to the stolen cars as well as inform him as to where the stolen cars were parked.

9 After receiving the keys to the stolen Malaysian cars, Zulkiffli would arrange for the cars to be retrieved and packed into 20- or 40-feet containers for export out of Singapore. The accused gave Zulkiffli instructions that he must ensure that the front and rear Malaysian registration plates were removed from the stolen cars before loading them into the containers.

10 Once the stolen Malaysian cars had been loaded into the containers, Zulkiffli was to arrange for the export documentation as well as the transportation of the containers. The accused instructed Zulkiffli not to declare the cargo in the containers as “motor cars”. The accused directed Zulkiffli to falsely declare them as “spare parts”, “bedding sets” or “empty packages”. The accused further instructed Zulkiffli to export all the cargo under the company name, “Excellence Supply”. The stolen Malaysian cars were to be exported to Batam, Indonesia or Hong Kong. After each successful shipment of the containers out of Singapore, the accused would...