SINGAPORE: A 22-year-old Malaysian man was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle in more than 4.7kg of heroin into the island republic via its Woodlands Checkpoint near here last Saturday.
In a statement, the republic's Immigration and Checkpoints Authorities (ICA) said their officers, while conducting regular checks on vehicles entering the country, had flagged down the man driving a Malaysia-registered vehicle.
Upon checking the vehicle, they found a haversack in the car's truck. Inside the haversack, 10 packets of small blocks of compressed white substance were found bundled up.
The ICA officers immediately alerted their Central Narcotics Bureau officers, who detained the suspect.
The substances were tested positive for heroin. Weighing 4,723g and valued at S$331,400 (RM1.128 million), the heroin could feed the addiction of 2,240 addicts for a week.
Singapore's law specifies the mandatory death sentence on anyone caught trafficking more than 500g of cannabis or 15g of heroin.
Amnesty International in its January 2004 report stated that more than 400 prisoners were hanged in Singapore since 1991, giving the small city-state possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population of just over six million people.