Four Colombians who traveled here to break into houses have been handed a year in jail each, according to Channel NewsAsia. This is pretty surprising because it shows 1) they just don’t know any better that no one can run far in Singapore 2) they thought they could pull off the heists under the noses of the police in Singapore. Nice try, but no.
Puentes Entralgo Yuli Caterine, her husband Gonzales Gonzales Alvaro, and their friends Ordonez Saenz Jose Andres and Sandoval Rivera Edgar Alberto had flown into Singapore on May 2, with the intention of breaking into landed properties to steal valuable items, Deputy Public Prosecutor Marcus Foo said.
In order to not raise any suspicions around the estate, they rented a Mercedes Benz to drive around in.
The four broke into a house in Jalan Eunos and Chancery Lane in broad daylight on May 4 and May 7 respectively. Nothing was stolen at Jalan Eunos, but their Chancery Lane heist bagged them three watches, a gemstone and $2,000 in cash.
However, it was their burglary of a Muswell Hill house in Braddell on May 6 that proved to be their undoing. Gonzales drove the group and waited in the car as the other three broke into the house by scaling a low wall and forcing open a sliding door with a crowbar. They ransacked the property but left empty-handed as they couldn’t find any valuables and they had noticed the CCTV cameras in the premises. The victim later returned at 10pm and found the place overturned.
The quartet were arrested the very next day at Tampines with bus tickets to Malaysia on them after they were identified through CCTV recordings of the trio.
All four have pleaded guilty to housebreaking by night, and asked for “forgiveness” in their mitigation. Caterine, 27, told the court through a Spanish interpreter, “I don’t know what happened to my mind” and added that she had been placed in “the psychological ward” after she almost tried to kill herself. She and Gonzales, 32, said they have not seen their two children in months, while Alberto, 45, having to support a family in Colombia, apologized for “giving (the police) so much work”.
The quartet could have been sentenced to three years’ jail each.
