The Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement last night that they arrested a 56-year-old Singaporean man yesterday from Malaysia for suspected drug trafficking.
The man, who had been living out of Singapore since 2018, was suspected of supplying drugs to associates in Singapore to traffick and sell in the city-state when the drug enforcement was investigating a drug trafficking case involving a 26-year-old Singaporean in October 2020.
The 26-year-old was charged with trafficking 253 grams of methamphetamine.
CNB said they tracked the 56-year-old down and requested help from Malaysian authorities on his whereabouts before the Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) of the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) arrested him on March 31 and handed him over to CNB yesterday.
“Drug traffickers thinking to evade Singaporean law enforcement by hiding overseas will find that there is no safe haven. CNB and NCID/RMP enjoy a close working relationship, as we work towards the common aim of keeping both our countries free from the scourge of drugs,” Deputy Director of CNB for Operations Leon Chan said.
Malaysia recently passed a bill to make the death penalty optional and not mandatory after Ramkarpal Singh, deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) said that capital punishment has “not brought the results it was intended to bring” and that the judiciary should exercise discretion fairly instead.
Meanwhile in Singapore, the capital punishment remains as is after Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam made it clear that Malaysia’s move is not going to sway Singapore into getting rid of its death penalty anytime soon.
According to Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1973, any person convicted of trafficking more than 250 grams of methamphetamine, more than 500 grams of cannabis, more than 15 grams of heroin, among others, is sentenced to death.
The 56-year-old man will be charged in court today for drug trafficking. If found guilty, he may face the death penalty.
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