[THIS IS A FICTIONAL CREATION INSPIRED BY SOME OF THE LEGAL CASES THAT CAME ACROSS OUR PRACTICE EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE A LEGAL ADVICE]
For those living in Johor Bahru (pre-pandemic era), the scene of thousands of commuters crossing the causeway to and from Singapore during peak hours is a common sight.
It is estimated that each day, around 350,000.00 travellers cross the 1 Kilometer causeway making it one of the world busiest border crossings.
The high exchange rate between Singapore Dollar and Malaysian Ringgit makes Singapore a very attractive destination for fellow Malaysians to make a living. As of the date of this writing, 1 Singapore Dollars equals to about 3 Malaysian Ringgit.
However, crossing the borders to work is not for the faint hearted. In order to be punctual for work, one would need to start their journey as early as 4am. That is if you are riding a motorcycle. And if you are driving, it would not be surprising for a commuter to take around 2 hours to cross the 1 Kilometer stretch of motorway.
This kind of traffic jam is different from those you see in the Klang Valley or other major cities. The Johor Bahru-Singapore crossing is mainly caused by bottlenecks due to customs and immigration inspections from both sides.
This is where the story of Chan Mun Tak begins, a 37 years old single man. Every morning he would jostle with thousands of other commuters to make the crossing. He works as a manual worker with a renovation company in the city-State where work starts at 8am.
By the time he finished work at around 4pm, he would reach his rented room in Skudai (Malaysia) around 6pm give or take. He would then have a few more hours to have his dinner, scroll through social media and watch some Youtube videos before heading for bed to reset his day at 4am tomorrow. So life is tough for Mun Tak. Life-work balance is basically non-existent.
Mun Tak had to rent a room in Skudai because he was not a Johorian. Mun Tak actually hails from Kuala Pilah, a town in the hinterland about 250km away from Johor Bahru. The rented room was basically just a place for him to store his belongings and rest.
You might ask why Mun Tak did not just rent a place in Singapore to save the hassle? Some employers in Singapore do provide dormitories to Malaysian workers but unfortunately not Mun Tak’s company. Rental for a small room in Singapore ranges from between $400.00 – $800.00 (Singapore Dollars) per month depending on locations and room space.
Whereas his room in Skudai just cost him RM300.00 (Ringgit Malaysia) per month. So, you do the maths.
In Johor Bahru, it is very common for landlords to rent out their unused rooms to “local migrants” like Mun Tak who lives together with another fellow renter called Ah Sing.
As fate would have it, Ah Sing came from Senawang, a town adjacent to Kuala Pilah where Mun Tak was from.
So, both Ah Sing and Mun Tak soon formed a rapport, they would have dinner together at the nearby Mamak stall al fresco, watching whatever that is broadcasted at the large lcd projector screen outside.
Both of them became so at ease with each other that it’s perfectly fine for Mun Tak to take Ah Sing’s second hand 12 years old BMW E46 for a joy ride provided that he treats Ah Sing to a nice meal the next day.
Ah Sing works part time at a nearby automobile repair shop, so he would know where to find good second hand car deals or fix up an already banged up E46. But Ah Sing lacks discipline and because he has no dependents, he could afford to work whenever he pleases. Working sporadically and taking daily wages.
This means that unlike Mun Tak, Ah Sing has more spare time and would wander late at night, drinking and having fun long after Mun Tak had gone to bed. Mun Tak never joins Ah Sing to his nightly outings, he simply did not have the time nor ardour to do so after a long day of work.
Mun Tak also did not know which club or pub that Ah Sing frequented, but it was not uncommon for Ah Sing to brag about his previous night “adventures” in neighbouring areas from Malacca to Singapore.
This setting remained for a few years until around mid 2016 when something phenomenal happened to Mun Tak. He got a girlfriend! Janet shared a similar background with Mun Tak and also does the daily commute in and out of Singapore.
On one early morning in August, Mun Tak and Janet were making preparations to get into Singapore, but this time it was not for work as both of them already got their holiday leave approved for the same day.
The plan was to get into Singapore early in the morning and spend the rest of the day doing what normal couples or day tourists would do in Singapore, a bit of shopping in Orchard Road, a lot of photographs with the Merlion and later wrapped up the night with a hearty dinner. Mun Tak also planned a detour to meet a colleague in Hougang to pick up some work related documents.
To go a step further, Mun Tak hopes to impress Janet by driving into Singapore, with Ah Sing’s BMW.
But Mun Tak did not have the chance to tell Ah Sing of his intention to take the car out because the night before Ah Sing was already out partying as per usual with the BMW.
By morning, the car was already parked alluringly on the porch with Ah Sing sound asleep. Mun Tak thought that it would be rude for him to wake Ah Sing up just for the “trivial” issue of borrowing his car for a day trip. Surely Ah Sing would feel sufficiently compensated with 2 plates of “Maggie Goreng Tambah Peha” (Fried Noodle With Drumstick). As an icing on the cake, he would also return the car in full tank, washed and polished.
He just needs to make sure he is careful on the road and not to hit anything with the car. What could go wrong?
So, when first light arrived, he drove to pick up Janet at Taman Sutera Utama, who was expectedly delighted. Sitting in an air-conditioned car is without doubt a much more comfortable experience than being a pillion rider.
It took them about 25 minutes to reach the causeway and after exiting the Malaysian side without any incident, Mun Tak soon reached Singapore’s side of the border. This was the first time Mun Tak had ever driven a car into Singapore.
From my own experience driving into Singapore, normally there would be around 2 to 3 officers from the Singapore’s Immigration and Custom Authority (ICA) around each vehicle lane. One would be seated in a booth verifying your passport, while the others would be positioned near your vehicle to look for anything suspicious. You are expected to alight from your vehicle and open up your car boot for a quick visual inspection.
The ICA’s officers that I have met were mostly stern and professional, as their line of job dictates. Singapore had an aggressive stand against illicit drugs, and since Malaysia is the only land crossing to Singapore, most of Singapore’s illicit drug supplies came from Malaysia, unfortunately.
Occasionally, ICA’s officers would randomly request for a more thorough search on the vehicle or if the officer smelled something fishy on you. Luckily for me (fingers crossed), I have never been subjected to such a search during all of my trips to Singapore, which would surely be an inconvenience.
Mun Tak knew all this of course, but because this was his first time driving into Singapore and also because he was too preoccupied in carefully navigating the narrow vehicle lane inside the immigration complex, he missed the instructions from one of the officers to halt his vehicle.
BAAM!!!! One of the ICA officers gave a loud knock on the rear side of Mun Tak’s vehicle after giving a short case. Startled, Mun Tak hit the brake, stopping the car abruptly.
“Did you not hear I asked you to halt?!” yelled the officer.
“Soli soli officer, wo ting bu dao” (“Sorry officer, I could not hear you” in mandarin), answered Mun Tak apologetically.
“Drive over to the checking bay!” The officer directed Mun Tak for a detailed search on the vehicle, clearly not pleased with Mun Tak for making him give chase.
Mun Tak complied but was a little bit embarrassed for being yelled at in front of Janet.
Once the car was parked in the checking bay, Mun Tak was ordered to open up his car boot. Empty and squeaky clean!
Then a quick look at the rear passenger seats. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Next, Mun Tak was asked to open the glove compartment. Inside, there was the typical rubbish you would find in any other vehicles, old receipts, dried pens, parking coupons etc.
But deep in the left corner of the glove compartment, there was one suspicious looking pink plastic bag wrapped with black sticky tapes. The officer sensing something was not right immediately radioed a few of his colleagues to the checking bay which arrived momentarily.
The pink plastic bag was opened in front of Mun Tak and enclosed within the said pink plastic bags were 5 to 6 smaller bundles of plastic wraps.
When uncovered further, tiny crystalline substances were seen inside each of the individual bundles.
