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On Jan. 3, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers found a trash bag of about 5.8kg of kratom leaves in an arriving Malaysia-registered lorry via the Woodlands Checkpoint.

A total of five suspected male drug offenders were arrested at multiple locations in Singapore on Jan. 3 and Jan. 4.

ICA officers check

On Jan. 3, ICA officers noticed anomalies in the scanned images of a lorry conveying a consignment of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles.

Upon further checks, a trash bag containing 22 bundles of close to 6kg of kratom leaves was found in the lorry battery compartment.

The 33-year-old Malaysian driver was immediately arrested and referred to Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) for investigation.

The CNB officers also arrested a 33-year-old Singaporean man and a 40-year-old Malaysian man in the vicinity of Pandan Loop in a follow-up operation conducted on the same day.

A 27-year-old Malaysian man was also arrested in the vicinity.

In another follow-up operation conducted on Jan. 4, CNB officers arrested a 31-year-old Malaysian man in a commercial building located in the vicinity of Beach Road.

In a joint press release on Jan. 5, ICA and CNB said that investigations into the drug activities and suspects are still ongoing.

Penalties

Kratom contains ‘Mitragynine’ and ‘7-Hydroxymitragynine’, which are both Class A controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

The importation of these Class A controlled drugs into Singapore is an offence that, upon conviction, carries a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment and five strokes of the cane.

"Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore’s security. The ICA and CNB will continue to conduct security checks at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle undesirable persons, weapons, explosives, controlled drugs and other contrabands across our borders."

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Top images by CNB.