Singapore, Jan 4: A 36-year-old Malaysian man of Indian-origin was sentenced to seven years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane for robbing another man of more than SGD 624,000 worth of cash and then fleeing to Malaysia, where he stayed for eight years before getting caught.
Sivaraam Monion from Malaysia pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one charge of gang robbery. He was the last in a group of nine men involved in the crime to be sentenced.
The court heard that the victim was a 35-year-old manager of a money-changing business known as “Golden V2” at the time. His father-in-law was the director of the company, reported TODAY newspaper.
Sometime in 2013, Monion borrowed Malaysian Ringgit 10,000 (SGD3,019) from Tachana Moorthy Peromal, one of the men involved in the robbery. Although initially able to service the loan, he was unable to continue doing so eventually.
In April 2014, Peromal and a man named Sivarugu Armugam planned to rob the cash transported by Golden V2’s couriers.
Peromal then approached Monion and asked him to join them, promising to waive the loan that Morion owed him if he agreed.
After Monion agreed, Peromal and another accomplice called Baskaran Balakrishnan recruited more accomplices who all agreed to be part of the plan.
Over the course of about two weeks in September 2014, Balakrishnan, Sekaran, Peromal and Mari entered Singapore on at least two occasions to meet Raman and plan the robbery.
The plan was for Raman to look for the victim’s car along Bedok Reservoir Road near Eunos Link while five of them, including Monion, would carry out the robbery.
Two other accomplices would wait in another vehicle at a nearby location to give instructions and coordinate with the other accomplices.
On November 5, 2014, the victim left his home with his son, who was two years old at the time.
He drove to the arrival hall of Changi Airport Terminal 2 to collect the cash from the company couriers.
It was stored in a luggage bag that contained a total value of SGD624,036.41 in Singapore and several foreign currencies, as well as two Nokia phones.
After picking up the luggage bag, as well as another one that was empty, the victim drove home.
At about 12.45 am, Annadurai spotted the victim’s car passing by his location at the junction of Geylang East Central and Geylang East Avenue 1.
He notified the other accomplices and they started following the victim’s car, tailing it in a car they had stolen, until the victim reached an open-air car park. Court documents did not state the location of the car park.
After the victim parked his car, Monion and Karunanithy approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and pulled on the door handle.
Realising that it was locked, they hit the window repeatedly, causing it to shatter.
One of them also threatened the victim, saying to him in Tamil, “You want me to kill your son?”.
Eventually, one of the robbers reached into the car and unlocked the door while the other one dragged the victim out of the car.
All of this happened while his toddler son was seated in the front passenger seat of the car.
The pair then unlocked the car boot and transferred the luggage bags to their car before driving away.
All of the accomplices fled Singapore for Malaysia between 2.03 am and 2.08 am that day, court documents stated.
District Judge Luke Tan noted that the offence was committed in 2014 but Monion was arrested in Malaysia and only extradited in July last year, showing that this was “hardly a case of him showing remorse”.
In consideration of these factors, he agreed with the prosecution’s proposed sentence and meted out the punishment of seven years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane.
Anyone guilty of gang robbery can be jailed for up to 20 years and receive up to 12 strokes of the cane.
Other members of the gang have been dealt with earlier. (PTI)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel