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POACHING WITH A POLE: Madam Amy Yang showing how the suspect used a bamboo pole to fish for a school bag through the metal louvres of a living-room window in her 10th-storey flat. She later found $25 missing. -- ST PHOTO: SHAHRIYA YAHAYA
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THE cops on lookout duty were not in their uniforms, so as not to tip off their quarry.
Then they saw him: standing on a stool, peeping into a flat in Block 643, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4.
It was about 1.30am yesterday, when most residents were asleep.
Tailing him, the policemen saw him prowl from floor to floor, at times using nearby stools.
Peeping Tom?
Not so, for the 19-year-old then decided to make his move - he tried to force open the windows of a fourth-floor flat. The cops moved in and nabbed him.
With the arrest, Ang Mo Kio Police Division officers believe they have caught the culprit behind 12 break-ins since last month in the area, with about $6,000 in valuables stolen.
Residents in the area believe that the Malaysian, who works here as a waiter, lives in their midst.
One group of students living on the 10th storey of Block 643 recalled a scary encounter with the suspect in the wee hours of Jan 3.
Speaking to The Straits Times yesterday, Secondary 3 student Chen Xiu Qin, 18, said she had just ended a phone chat with a friend a little after midnight.
The China national, who has been studying in Singapore for the past four years, was about to go to sleep when she saw a shadowy figure in the corridor outside her bedroom.
He shone a torchlight in. Scared, she pretended to sleep. He then went away.
She alerted her two room mates and they shut the window louvres. But an hour later, the suspect returned and peeked through the glass louvres above the metal ones.
'Who's there!' shouted Xiu Qin in Mandarin.
'He was expressionless and did not react when I shouted,' she said. 'It was scary. He did not run off at once.'
Fearful, the three girls went to sleep in the room of their guardian, Madam Amy Yang. At about 3am, they heard some sounds coming from the living room.
Madam Yang, 40, a study mama, ventured out and - to her horror - saw the suspect outside, using a bamboo pole, 'fishing' for a school bag through the metal louvres of a living-room window.
'I will call the police!' she yelled in Mandarin. 'He did not run off immediately. He just came down from a stool slowly and left. We could not sleep the whole night,' she said.
Madam Yang later found that he had managed to filch $25 from a wallet in one of three school bags in the room.
Police believe the early-morning burglar targeted flats with unlocked windows or with louvres facing corridors. Using bamboo poles, metal rods or umbrellas, he fished out wallets, handbags and cellphones left near windows.
Police said, in some cases, door keys were fished out and the culprit would walk right in to steal items.
Yesterday, when the suspect was caught, two stools, a metal pole and a mobile phone were seized. Later, two other mobile phones and an ez-link card believed to have been stolen were retrieved from his home, which is believed to be in the area.
The commander of Ang Mo Kio Police Division, Superintendent Lee Chin Ek, praised his officers' perseverance which led to the arrest.
He advised the public to avoid being targets of such 'opportunistic' crimes by installing good quality window grilles and locking windows before going to bed and not to leave valuables near windows facing the corridor.
tracysua@sph.com.sg
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