Jail, cane for man convicted of buying cannabis online and other drug-related charges
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Nicholas Chee Li-Yong was jailed for five years and eight months and ordered to receive 10 strokes of the cane for buying cannabis online and other drug-related offences.
PHOTO: ST FILE
SINGAPORE - An unemployed man was jailed for five years and eight months and ordered to receive 10 strokes of the cane on Friday (Feb 10) for buying cannabis online and other drug-related offences.
Nicholas Chee Li-Yong, 28, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug consumption and one count each of drug importation, trafficking and possession.
Twenty other drug-related charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
On Jan 22, last year, an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officer at the ICA parcel post section at Eunos Road found a parcel from the USA marked "Stussy logo tank top".
Addressed to Chee at his virtual office business mailing address at Robinson Road, the parcel was found to contain cannabis.
Central Narcotics Bureau officers went to his home at Dalvey Road near Bukit Timah Road later that day and arrested him.
They searched his room and found drugs such as cocaine and lysergide or LSD.
Chee later admitted he had intended to use the LSD to barter trade with a woman known only as Shuk. In exchange, she would give him drugs such as ecstasy, nimetazepam or Erimin-5 and methamphetamine or Ice.
Chee also admitted that he had bought the cocaine online for US$350 (S$497) and the drug was for his own consumption.
Three other parcels addressed to him were detected at the ICA parcel post section and the Singapore Post Jalan Lembah Kallang delivery base between Jan 28 and Feb 3 last year.
They were found to contain items including three glass apparatus and two plastic packets of cannabis.
According to court documents, he said he bought the drug from an online website and the supplier, whom he believed to be from the USA, would sent it to him via post.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Chan Yi Cheng said Chee also admitted that he last smoked cannabis from the supplier on the day of his arrest.
Besides cannabis, nimetazepam or Erimin-5 was also detected in his urine.
For importing drugs, he could have been jailed between five and 30 years and receive between five and 15 strokes of the cane.
For each count of drug consumption, he could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined up to $20,000.
