Cleaner finds over 100 vapes in Tampines HDB block's electrical riser, says not the 1st time

A cleaner in a Tampines found a stash of 100 or more e-vaporisers hidden in a public housing block's electrical riser on Nov. 11.

The discovery was made at Block 494D Tampines Street 43, Shin Min Daily News reported.

The cleaner found the vapes hidden in suitcases and plastic bags at 5am.

He then told a newspaper vendor nearby to call the police.

Not first incident

The 70-year-old vendor, Huang Yongcai, told Shin Min that he sets up his stall at around 2am every day.

Huang said the cleaner came to his stall that morning and told him that he found vapes.

Called police

Upon being notified, Huang immediately went to check it out.

He said: "I then loaded the items onto my bicycle, took them to my newsstand, and immediately notified the police."

Huang said that police officers arrived at the scene around 9am and took the contraband away.

He added that since the cleaner said this was not the first incident, he was worried that there might be criminals operating nearby, or that someone was trying to sell vapes to young people.

According to the video taken by Huang, there were eight boxes in the suitcase, each containing 10 vapes.

In addition, with at least two boxes in the plastic bag, the total number of vapes hidden is believed have been at least a 100 or more.

According to the cleaner, he had previously found a bag of vapes while cleaning in the vicinity and threw them away.

Statistics

After the authorities announced on Aug. 28 that there would be greater enforcement action against vapes, more than 10,000 enforcement officers have been conducting enforcement operations in entertainment venues and higher education institutions.

From Sep. 1 to Nov. 2, more than 1,900 people have been caught for vape-related offences, among whom 167 were found with vapes containing etomidate.

After the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) began conducting random vape checks, the ratio of vapes containing etomidate was found to be on a downward trend.

Based on checks in July, 30 per cent of 100 vapes contained etomidate.

This decreased by 12 per cent in August and by another 9 per cent in September.

HSA emphasised that public vigilance is a big support in addressing the issue.

In a nine-week operation from September to November, over 2,600 vape cases were reported by the public.

Top photos via Shin Min Daily News