Jail for 2 former auxiliary officers for committing offences relating to confiscated vape products

SINGAPORE — Two former Certis Cisco auxiliary enforcement officers were sentenced to jail on Friday (Dec 23), one for dishonestly receiving stolen vape products and the other for forging signatures on documents.

They are the last two of six individuals who were charged in October for such offences related to confiscated vape products. The other four have already pleaded guilty and been sentenced.

On Friday, Mohan Raj Akilan, a 31-year-old Malaysian, was sentenced to three months’ jail and to pay a fine of S$800, after he pleaded guilty to one charge of dishonestly receiving stolen property and one charge of possessing prohibited products under the Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act.

Another charge of possessing such prohibited products was taken into consideration in sentencing.

Mohamad Nor Amali Halmi, a 35-year-old Malaysian, was sentenced to three weeks’ jail for forgery, with another similar charge taken into consideration in sentencing.

This was in relation to forms he handled when documenting prohibited tobacco products that he had confiscated from trainee officers.

AN ‘OPEN SECRET’

The court heard on Friday that Mohan had been employed by Certis Cisco as an enforcement officer since April 2011.

From May 2021, he was deployed to the enforcement unit of the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) under the Tobacco Regulation Branch.

Such officers are given the authority to conduct searches and confiscate prohibited tobacco-related products. They are also deemed to be public servants. 

Sometime between June and July 2021, Mohan received, among other things, 40 packs of vape pods and seven vape devices from another Certis officer named Muhammad Faddley Abdul Wahid from the Tobacco Regulation Branch. These products were estimated to be worth about S$1,400.

Faddley, along with some other officers, had allegedly misappropriated these products from a pool of items confiscated from travellers coming into Singapore via the Changi Airport.

Court documents did not indicate whether Faddley and the officers have been dealt with what they did. He was not among the six charged in October.

The misappropriation of such contraband confiscated tobacco products began sometime in 2021 and 2022, and they were shared among enforcement officers, court documents stated.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Hsiao Tien said: “Gradually, the sharing of misappropriated items among the Certis officers from the Tobacco Regulation Branch became an 'open secret' or 'unspoken rule' among them."

She added: “The accused was never deployed to perform the collection duties described above. However, he was among the officers who received the misappropriated items.”

FORGED SIGNATURES TO AVOID ‘OFFENDING’ SUPERVISOR

As for Amali — who was also an officer from the Tobacco Regulation Branch under Certis Cisco during the time of his offence — he and a colleague discovered two trainees from Certis Cisco smoking the vape devices on March 7.

Amali and his fellow officer confiscated the items and instructed the trainees to each complete and sign on an offence reporting form acknowledging the forfeiture of the vape devices.

Amali then submitted the forms to his supervisor on the same day. However, the forms were mistakenly compiled together with a separate batch of forms and sent to HSA.

When the supervisor could not find the trainees’ forms later, she asked for the forms from Amali and sent a few reminders, thinking he had not done so.

Amali thought that his supervisor had misplaced the forms that he submitted on March 7, but decided to submit new ones because he "did not want to offend her”, DPP Tan said.

He did this based on the soft copy records he had. However, he could not get the trainees to sign them in time for the submission deadline, so he forged their signatures instead.

Amali’s offence was uncovered when the four copies of the form were found, with the duplicate ones bearing different signatures.

The offence of receiving or retaining stolen property is punishable with a prison term of up to five years or with fine, or with both.

For possessing the vape and vape pods, Mohan could have been fined up to S$2,000.

For forgery, Amali could have been punished with a jail term of up to four years or fined, or both.

The other four people charged in October received jail sentences ranging from two weeks to three months.