Youth, 19, nabbed in Clementi for suspected role in loansharking activity

SINGAPORE — The police have arrested a 19-year-old for suspected involvement in loansharking activity.

The youth was spotted behaving suspiciously near an automated teller machine (ATM) in the vicinity of Clementi Avenue 3 on Saturday evening by police officers from Clementi Police Division, who were on their rounds.

Upon conducting a check on him, the officers found loanshark-related paraphernalia including one mobile phone containing suspected debtors’ records, three ATM cards and five ATM transaction receipts in his possession. He was arrested and the items were seized as case exhibits.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect is not a debtor but had, however, “succumbed to the lure of easy money” and had assisted loansharks in their businesses by carrying out electronic fund transactions at ATMs, the police said in a statement yesterday.

Investigations against the suspect are ongoing. Under the Moneylenders Act, first-time offenders found guilty of assisting in the business operations of an unlicensed moneylender, may be fined at least S$30,000 and up to S$300,000, jailed up to four years and shall also be liable for up to six strokes of the cane.