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LOAN sharks - denizens of a murky underworld - are said to lure, then stalk, people who turn to them for illegal loans.
When caught in the law's trawl net, these 'Ah Longs' can be fined and even jailed.
But now, Holland-Bukit Timah GRC MP Christopher de Souza wants borrowers who use the illegal loans to gamble punished too, as well as those who give false addresses.
The authorities say they are looking into the MP's suggestion.
Many illegal debtors resort to giving false addresses, leading to another social problem: Innocent people end up being harassed and their flats vandalised by the loan sharks.
Are there unintended outcomes if a law to criminalise illegal borrowing to feed the gambling vice is enacted? The Sunday Times spoke to four 'Ah Longs' and 10 people who have borrowed money at high interest rates for their perspectives. Counsellors were interviewed too.
Currently, only loan sharks are punished. First-time 'Ah Longs' face fines from $20,000 to $200,000 as well as a jail term of up to two years or both. Recalcitrant loan sharks face the same range of fines and a compulsory jail term of up to five years.
Debtors said that if such a law were passed, they would not be prepared to report the loan sharks to the police.They were also afraid that the loan sharks would harass them even more severely, knowing that they would not dare turn to the police.
One man, who gave his name as Mr S. Koh, admitted that he had borrowed $2,000 from a loan shark to feed his gambling addiction. Because he could not make repayments on time, his debt snowballed to $10,000 in January this year.
Then, the loan shark sent thugs to splash paint on the front door of his Woodlands flat. They also left their signature - 'O$P$' ('owe money, pay money') - along his corridor. The gangsters threatened to harm his wife and teenage son should he flee Singapore.
Worried for his family's safety, the 56-year-old hawker turned to the police who advised him to set up a closed-circuit TV system. The loan sharks have since stopped targeting his house.
But if Mr Koh could be prosecuted too, he said that he 'wouldn't dare report to the police even if the loan sharks threaten to kill my family'. He added: 'But I won't stop borrowing from them. They are the only ones I can turn to when I need money.'
Volunteers and counsellors The Sunday Times spoke to felt criminalising borrowing would only drive the loan-shark problem further underground.
Volunteers like Mr Wong - a church member who asked that his full name not be revealed - help borrowers 'negotiate' less onerous terms from their loan sharks.
Mr Wong, 53, said the families of borrowers would suffer should the law be passed. It would be the 'Ah Longs' who would 'win'.
'While the borrowers take a break in prison, it is their families who have to face the loan sharks' harassment,' he said.
Echoing Mr Wong, one loan shark, who gave his name only as Ah Hock, 35, welcomed such a move.
'This would be good news for us. If the police arrest those who borrow, they won't dare to report us when we harass them,' he said in Mandarin.
Another loan shark, known only as Ah Tan, 63, said it is common practice for 'bad borrowers' to report them to the police, in a bid to escape their debts.
'These days, at least four out of 10 borrowers would report us to the police,' he said. 'They have no intention to pay us back.'
When sales executive J. Chee, 43, could not repay his $7,500 debt in January last year, he decided to 'trap' his loan shark.
He kept a lookout for the 'Ah Long' near the lift lobby and dialled 999 when the young man started scribbling 'O$P$', together with his address, at different floors of his Ang Mo Kio block of flats. The police arrived and nabbed the loan shark, who was jailed. He has not heard from the loan shark since.
'By the time he gets out of jail, I'll have moved house,' Mr Chee said. 'I'm safe now.'
However, a loan shark who called himself 'Tim' said only 'small time loan sharks' can be entrapped. With syndicates, he said, if one loan shark is caught, another would step in to 'handle his accounts'. He also said those who make police reports would be harassed 'doubly hard'.
'If last time we put one lock on their door, now we'll put two,' he said in Mandarin. 'We'll also throw faeces at their door.'
Most debtors insisted they were forced to go to the police because they could not pay the high interest rates of up to 20 per cent levied by the 'Ah Longs'. Even friends of debtors can get dragged in.
A coffee shop assistant, who called himself Mr Choo, knew of a friend who fled the country. Three loan sharks came knocking on his door instead. As his friend's guarantor, Mr Choo, 35, tried to settle the original $1,500 debt. But they demanded that he pay up $6,000. 'There was no negotiation. So I reported them to the police,' he said.
There were 9,762 harassment and unlicensed moneylending cases reported last year, up from 8,568 in 2005, with 10,221 such cases in 2006. Arrests were also up. Last year, the police arrested 392 people for unlicensed moneylending and harassment, up from 294 in 2006 and 265 in 2005.
About half the reported loan-shark harassment cases involved innocent families.
In the case of Mr H. S. Pang, when loan sharks could not locate a friend of his, they targeted him instead, splashing paint on his premises thrice and vandalising the corridor outside his flat.
The 53-year-old odd-job labourer said the harassment took a toll on his family and felt that the police should set harsher penalties for loan sharks instead of punishing borrowers.
Mr Samuel Ng, executive consultant of Marine Parade Family Service Centre, said that criminalising borrowing could lead to other problems such as theft. He said:'If we go radical and catch borrowers, it will just push them underground and start a wildfire.'
But former borrower K. S. Lim, 44, said that merely punishing the loan sharks would not eradicate the two-sided problem.
'If you just catch the 'supply', the 'demand' will still look for other loan sharks to borrow from,' said the cabby. 'The borrowers are at fault too.'
Additional reporting by Samantha Eng
mavistoh@sph.com.sg
Should those who borrow from loan sharks be punished? Send your views to suntimes@sph.com.sg
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