SINGAPORE - A delivery driver's hobby of collecting airsoft pistols landed him in trouble with the law and he was jailed for a week and fined $2,000 on Wednesday (Jan 6) for dealing in arms.
Muhamad Jalil Jamaludin, 37, admitted to selling one airsoft revolver and five airsoft pistols to Johanan Lim Wei En, 22, without a valid licence at the void deck of Block 541 Serangoon North Avenue 4 between May and June 2015.
A second charge of having two airsoft pistols at home was taken into consideration during sentencing.
Assistant Public Prosecutor Daniel Marini said one Yang Ziyi, 26, was arrested at Pioneer Mall, Jurong West, in June last year for having a Desert Eagle pistol. Police also seized a packet of yellow plastic pellets from his home in Jurong West.
Further investigations showed that Yang had bought the pistol from Jalil through Lim.
APP Marini said between May and June 2015, Jalil sold the six items to Lim at the void deck of the latter's home at Serangoon North Avenue 4 for between $110 and $25O each. He made a total profit of $150.
Jalil, who was arrested at his Marine Terrace home on June 30, had admitted to dealing in arms and selling the airsoft pistols and revolver to Lim without a licence. He had bought them from online marketplace Carousell between December 2014 and June 2015.
Yang was given five weeks' jail in October 2015 for possession of arms without a licence and had a charge of criminal intimidation considered.
Lim was jailed for one week in November 2015 for a similar offence. He was also convicted of criminal intimidation for an unrelated incident.
Pleading for leniency, Jalil's lawyer Rajan Supramaniam said his client, who has four young children, was extremely remorseful and had learnt his lesson for possessing pistols which was part of his hobby.
Counsel said his client had given up the hobby. His family had seriously reprimanded him for his "foolish and irresponsible acts'', he stated.
Under the Arms and Explosives Act, Jalil could have been fined up to $10,000 and jailed for up to three years.
