104 nabbed in anti-loan shark raids

Police have arrested 104 suspects, aged between 18 and 72, in an islandwide operation on loan sharking from Monday to Wednesday.

Eighty-one were men and 23 were women.

Officers from the Criminal Investigation Department and six police divisions carried out simultaneous raids at multiple locations.

Ninety-six suspects are believed to have opened bank accounts and given away their ATM cards and details to loan sharks to facilitate their unlicensed moneylending businesses.

16 probed over illegal remote gambling

Sixteen men are being investigated for their suspected involvement in unlawful remote gambling activities, the police said yesterday.

The men, aged between 21 and 76, were discovered during several operations by the Criminal Investigation Department on Monday and Tuesday.

Mobile phones and documents, such as online betting records, were seized.

Preliminary investigations showed that 10 suspects were involved in illegal soccer betting activities, while the other six allegedly allowed illegal remote gambling syndicates to use their bank account or mobile line for their operations.

Anyone found guilty of participating in unlawful remote gambling may be jailed up to six months, fined up to $5,000 or both.

Jailed, fined $600k for imported car offences

A manager of a car import company has been jailed four weeks and fined $594,399.60 for fraudulently under-declaring the value of 47 imported cars.

Vida Ang Wee Tat, 35, pleaded guilty to 28 charges of incorrect declarations of the value of imported cars under the Customs Act. Another 52 similar charges were taken into consideration in the sentencing.

Ang also pleaded guilty to 15 charges under the Road Traffic Act for providing incorrect information on the Open Market Value of the imported cars, which affected the amount of Additional Registration Fees (ARF) payable for these cars. Another 32 charges were taken into consideration in the sentencing.

Ang was ordered by the court to pay the ARF shortfall for the 47 imported cars to the Land Transport Authority.