Dunearn Road crash leads to morning rush-hour jam

An accident between a car and a motorcycle in Dunearn Road blocked one of its three lanes and caused a massive traffic jam during the morning rush hour yesterday.

Police said they received a call about the accident near National Junior College at 6.46am. By 7.40am, the traffic tail-back had reached Old Jurong Road, according to the Land Transport Authority.

A 37-year-old motorcyclist was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital. The accident was cleared by about 7.55am.

Jailed for helping in fake casino chip conspiracy

An odd-job labourer who abetted three others in a conspiracy to use fake casino chips as genuine was jailed for 12 months yesterday.

Seow Piak Long, 64, admitted to scheming with Toh Hock Thiam, 54, Chia Wai Tien, 47, and an unknown man known as Ah Beng to commit the offence.

Between Nov 22 and 23, he collected 320 fake chips from Ah Beng at People's Park Complex and delivered them to Chia to be exchanged for cash at the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) casino. The chips' total face value was $320,000.

Last November, a transnational syndicate recruited runners to exchange more than a thousand $1,000 casino chips at MBS.

The runners would first exchange a few fake chips at the gaming tables for genuine ones of smaller denominations, and mix the genuine chips with the remaining counterfeit chips and exchange them for cash.

Toh got Seow, his childhood friend and secret society gang member, to act as an assistant to his accomplice, Ah Beng, and assured him that he could earn a few hundred dollars.

Besides delivering fake chips to Chia, Seow collected money from Chia, which he handed to Ah Beng.

MBS detected the fake chips in November and conducted a recall exercise for all $1,000 casino chips. MBS suffered losses of more than $1 million.