IPOH: A total of 36 suspected members of a notorious secret society were recently arrested, crippling the group known as Gang 04, Malaysian police said on Monday (Feb 19) .
The nationwide operation dubbed Op Cantas Silver began on Jan 27 and involved suspected members aged between 20 and 60, including one holding the honorific title of Datuk.
Twenty-six were picked up in Perak, Selangor, Malacca and Johor, while the rest were rounded up in Pokok Sena, Kedah, Taiping and Batu Gajah in Perak, as well as Sungai Udang, Melaka.
Perak police chief Hasnan Hassan said the operation was mounted following a series of violent incidents including the murder of a woman with the honorific title of Datin Seri.
The murder occurred in front of a restaurant in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur on Jul 6, 2016. In another case, a man was killed utan Melintang, Bagan Datuk in Perak in November 2016.
"The long-running secret society had been involved in organised crime and other criminal activities involving robbery, extortion, arson and drug trafficking," Perak's police chief told a press conference at the state police contingent headquarters in Ipoh on Monday.
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He said Bukit Aman's Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) crime investigation team also froze and seized assets belonging to the group worth RM4.5 million, which covered vehicles, property, jewellery, valuable items, bank accounts and cash.
"The police are in the midst of tracking down 10 members of the group who have fled. Interpol assistance will be sought if the suspects go into hiding abroad," he added.
According to Hasnan, all the suspects were remanded for 28 days from Jan 27 under Section 4 (5) of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA).
The case was also investigated under Section 4 (1) of the Anti Money Laundering Act, Anti Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUAA) 2001.
Hasnan said the 36 suspects would be charged at the Ipoh Sessions Court on Tuesday under Section 130 V of the Penal Code and Section 130 W of the Penal Code for being members of the group and assisting an organised crime group.
SINGAPORE: A 59-year-old rope skipping coach was convicted on Tuesday (Feb 20) of raping his 13-year-old student at his Tampines home in 2008 and 2009.
Roger Yue Jr, then the president of Rope Skipping Singapore, was also convicted of sexually assaulting the teenager on multiple occasions. He used the handle of a skipping rope and a vibrator on the girl, and made her perform oral sex on him.
Yue was convicted of seven charges – two of rape and five of sexual penetration of a minor – after a seven-day trial, at which the victim, now 22, testified against him.
Yue had sexually abused the girl for two years, from 2008 until 2010, though she waited five years to report the abuse to the police. This years-long delay “gave me some pause", Justice Aedit Abdullah said.
“I accept that victims of sexual assault or abuse may not behave in a stereotypical way,” Justice Aedit said. "The thinking process … of a juvenile victim may lead to a course of action that may appear unreasonable … (but) the court must be mindful (of this) and should not measure a child by adult standards," he added.
However, the delayed reporting of the office could have "robbed the victim of the strength of the support that is to be obtained from early reporting", Justice Aedit said, as early reports “give strong support to the case against an accused person".
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In this case, the teenager’s evidence alone was not sufficient to convict Yue, Justice Aedit said.
It was Yue’s own statement to a psychiatrist that did him in. Yue had told a psychiatrist that he considered himself to be in a relationship with the teenager and that it was in this context that he committed the sexual acts.
"Taken together with the victim’s testimony, there was sufficient evidence (to convict Yue)," Justice Aedit said. Whether the teenager consented to the sexual acts is "irrelevant" because she was a juvenile victim, he added.
"I accept the (victim’s) evidence that the sexual acts were committed through what was at least cajoling, if not pressure, by (Yue)," Justice Aedit said.
Yue is on bail of S$70,000 pending a sentencing hearing on Mar 21.
He faces up to 20 years' jail for each charge of rape or sexual penetration of a minor under 16. As he is above 50, he cannot be caned.
Another 41 charges against Yue – all involving the same victim – will be dealt with at a later date.
These include more than 20 charges for sexual penetration of a minor and more than 10 charges under the Children and Young Persons Act for committing indecent acts with a child.
In addition to allegedly sexually assaulting the girl in public, including at a public carpark at Tampines, an abandoned building along Lavender Street, the pagoda at Chinese Garden and in the bushes outside Bedok MRT station, Yue is also accused of taking photographs of her in the nude.
On one occasion in 2008 at Lakeside MRT station, Yue allegedly told the girl to change into a tight-fitting dress and to remove her bra and panties.
SINGAPORE: Come Jan 1, 2020, a goods and services tax (GST) will be imposed on imported digital services, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced in his Budget 2018 speech on Monday (Feb 19). This, he explained, is to ensure that imported and local services are “accorded the same treatment”.
With the advent of technology and the digital economy, it has become increasingly common for services consumed in Singapore to be obtained from overseas suppliers that do not have a presence here, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) explained further in a separate media release.
WATCH: If you download apps and music from overseas firms, you will soon have to pay GST as it’s considered an “imported service”. #SGBudget2018 https://t.co/tv6boF0C6Y pic.twitter.com/rtLiiG9stl — Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia) February 19, 2018
So what does this latest announcement mean? What will be the impact on consumers and service providers? We shed light on some of these questions.
Q: Which businesses will be impacted by this announcement?
The GST on digital services targets two categories of services: Business-to-business (B2B) types such as marketing, accounting, IT and management, as well as business-to-consumers (B2C) ones such as video and music streaming, apps, listing fees on electronic marketplaces, software and online subscription fees.
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Q: What is overseas vendor registration?
The overseas vendor registration is required for B2C imported services, which means service providers and electronic marketplace operators such as app stores will need to be registered with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).
Specifically, those required to register are vendors whose annual turnover exceeds S$1 million and the sale of digital services to consumers in Singapore exceeds S$100,000.
Q: How will this tax impact B2C digital service providers?
According to Mr Adrian Lee, research director at Gartner, these providers will face increased operational costs for compliance with the new tax regime. They will need to ramp up to handle GST reconciliation with IRAS once they cross the S$100,000 threshold, he explained.
“Coupled with the proposed increase in GST to 9 per cent across all businesses from 2021, this hits the digital service providers domiciled both in and outside of Singapore with additional margin pressures as they strive to remain profitable,” Mr Lee said.
“Needless to say, this will dampen the growth of digital services in Singapore but should not constrain it, as consumers progressively digitise their services.”
He did note that it was a “positive sign” that the Government is giving these digital businesses early notice before implementing the tax.
About 1,000 companies offering B2B digital services, as well as 100 firms in the B2C space, are expected to be affected by the new tax, Channel NewsAsia understands.
Netflix and Google declined to comment for this story.
Q: How will this tax impact consumers?
It’s hard to tell, given that it will be a company's prerogative to decide how much of the tax it wants to apportion to consumers.
Ms Gan Hwee Leng, tax partner at KPMG Singapore, pointed out that the implementation of GST for imported services aligns Singapore’s GST framework with those of other countries, and puts local and overseas service providers on a level playing field.
“(However, this) translates to higher cost for local consumers,” she said.
Mr Lee said that in Gartner’s research findings, 59 per cent of Singaporeans have reported purchasing a product or service online, and B2C apps such as Grab, Uber and Spotify occupy the top 10 spots with the most monthly active users.
When implemented, Singaporeans may choose to lower their spending on taxable digital services that may be difficult to replace such as ride-hailing apps like Uber, or switch to services that are not taxed, the research director predicted.
“I do not think consumers will stop buying online. They will simply choose to spend more prudently,” Mr Lee said.
Q: How can consumers find out more on the GST for digital services?
On Tuesday, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) released a draft e-tax guide on GST for the import of digital services for both B2B and B2C transactions.
The British request came as part of extradition proceedings; UK laws currently prohibit extradition in the absence of such an assurance from Singapore.
SINGAPORE: The Government has agreed that a sentence of corporal punishment will not be carried out if suspected bank robber David Roach is found guilty by a Singapore court, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a press release on Tuesday (Feb 20).
"The Singapore Government is working with UK authorities on the extradition of David James Roach to Singapore," said MHA. "As part of the extradition proceedings, the UK government has requested an assurance that if Roach were to be found guilty by a Singapore Court of robbery, the sentence of corporal punishment will not be carried out."
"The Singapore Government has agreed to the UK authorities’ request," said MHA. It added that UK extradition laws prohibit the UK from extraditing Roach to Singapore in the absence of such an assurance.
The assurance is to "try and ensure that Roach does not escape justice", said MHA, adding that this "does not affect the general position taken by Singapore on corporal punishment".
"The UK courts will decide whether to extradite Roach," it added.
The 28-year-old Canadian allegedly stole S$30,000 from a Standard Chartered bank branch in Holland Village in July 2016.
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He fled to Thailand where he was jailed for 14 months for failing to declare the large sum of money. Singapore had asked Thai authorities to send Roach to Singapore to face charges but they decided to deport him to Canada.
Roach was on the way to Canada when he was detained at London's Heathrow Airport by officers from the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit on Jan 11.
Singapore is seeking his extradition on one count of robbery and one count of money laundering. Both offences carry a maximum jail term of 10 years.
In addition to a jail term, anyone found guilty of robbery in Singapore "shall also be punished with caning with not less than six strokes" if the crime was committed after 7am and before 7pm, according to the Penal Code.
