Loansharks in Singapore are recruiting foreign “runners” to
evade arrest, police say. (AFP photo)
AFP
Illegal money lending syndicates in Singapore are hiring more
foreign thugs, most of them from Taiwan and
Vietnam, to harass
delinquent borrowers into paying up, police said Wednesday.
These loansharks have resorted to recruiting foreign “runners”
in the hope that they can avoid detection and arrest by the
authorities because they enter on short-term social visit passes
and have no fixed addresses.
In 2010, 50 foreigners mostly from Taiwan and Vietnam working
for illegal money lenders were arrested, more than double the 22
people nabbed the year before, police said.
“These foreign loanshark runners are often recruited overseas,
are usually in Singapore for a short period of time and may not
have a fixed place to abode,” police said at their annual briefing
on the local crime situation.
Loanshark runners usually harass delinquent borrowers by
splashing paint on their homes and publicly shaming them by writing
their name, home address and telephone number on the walls of
highrise housing blocs.
In extreme cases they throw human or animal faeces, urine or
kerosene on a defaulting borrower’s doorstep or letterbox. They may
also physically threaten the borrower.
Assistant police commissioner Hoong Wee Teck, director of the
Criminal Investigation
Department, said loanshark syndicates “are mistaken if
they think they can circumvent the law by bringing in foreign
nationals to commit crime on their behalf.”
Unlicensed money lending and harassment are criminal offences in
Singapore.
Overall, crimes reported in the island-state, one of Asia’s
safest cities, fell 0.6 percent in 2010, police said.
Source:
http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2011/01/27/spore-loansharks-hiring-foreign-thugs-police/
