SINGAPORE - Two men and a woman were arrested earlier this week for misusing their boarding passes at Changi Airport.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday night (July 18), the police said that a 28-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman entered the transit area on Sunday to claim goods and services tax refunds.

The Straits Times understands that the refunds amounted to $20 and the items that they bought included cosmetics.

Separately, on Tuesday, a 49-year-old man was caught when he entered the transit area to send his friend off.

The police said that none of them had the intention of departing Singapore.

The trio are among the 19 people who have been arrested since January for the misuse of boarding passes.

In the first half of last year, 59 people were nabbed for misusing their boarding passes, according to police figures. This was almost triple the 23 arrests in the whole of 2016.

Many of them purchase tickets from budget carriers such as Scoot and Tigerair because they tend to be cheaper, according to a previous report by The Straits Times.

In its post, the police said that those who enter transit areas with a boarding pass should be there only for the purpose of travelling to their next destinations.

They added that Changi Airport's transit areas are gazetted as protected places.

Those who misuse their boarding passes may be fined $1,000, jailed for two years or both.