A 38-year-old man, Mahadi Muhamad Mukhtar, has been charged in court on April 14 for robbing a shop at Jurong East with a real firearm.

He was an on-duty Aetos auxiliary police officer at the time he allegedly committed the offence.

Mahadi was charged under the Armed Offences Act with being in unlawful possession of arms or ammunition in the commission of a scheduled offence.

His female friend, Nur Shana Muhammad, 34, has also been charged on the same day for dishonestly receiving stolen property.

She has been remanded for one week at Central Police Division with permission to be brought out for investigation.

What happened

The police were alerted to a case of armed robbery at a shop along Jurong Gateway Road in Jurong East at about 3:55pm on April 12, 2021.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Mahadi had allegedly robbed the unit by showing the staff inside a written note that said:

"This is a robbery, don't shout. I got gun in my pocket. Put all the money in the bag."

The staff handed over cash amounting to more than S$24,000 to Mahadi, and he fled.

While Mahadi was allegedly carrying a firearm during the commission of the offence, he did not reveal his weapon to the staff.

He is believed to have acted alone.

Left Aetos headquarters with his firearm

Before he allegedly committed the crime, Mahadi had reported to work at Aetos headquarters.

He had drawn his firearm prior to the commencement of his deployment.

He then changed out of his uniform and left the Aetos headquarters with his firearm without authorisation.

He allegedly committed the offence before reporting back to Aetos headquarters to change into his uniform and take the company's transport van to his deployment location.

Arrested within five hours

Through extensive investigations and aided by images from police cameras and shop CCTVs, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, Police Intelligence Department and Clementi Police Division arrested Mahadi with the help from Aetos staff.

He was arrested within five hours of the reported crime.

Eight other people arrested

Investigations also revealed that Mahadi had purportedly deposited part of the stolen cash into Shana's bank account.

Shana is his female friend, police said.

Mahadi also transferred the stolen cash to a few bank accounts to repay his debts to unlicensed moneylenders.

Shana had also allegedly facilitated the transfer of the stolen cash and she was arrested for dishonestly receiving stolen property.

The police have arrested eight other persons, aged between 16 and 48, for the same offence in connection to the case.

A portion of the stolen cash amounting to about S$17,500 has since been recovered.

Efforts are underway to recover the remaining cash.

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Top images by Jane Zhang.