Boatman jailed and fined for ferrying men, who jumped into foreign boat to visit Batam during COVID-19 pandemic

SINGAPORE: When his brother and acquaintance asked if he could help them get to Batam to visit their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, a steersman agreed.

In the dead of night, he steered his company vessel to a point off St John's Island in Singapore's territorial waters and waited until an Indonesian craft arrived.

The two men then jumped off the Singapore vessel into the other boat and sped off to Batam.

For crimes under the Immigration Act and Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Regulations, 36-year-old Arman Mahmood was jailed seven months and fined S$6,000 on Friday (Jan 8).

The court heard that Arman was having lunch at a coffee shop sometime in September last year with his 29-year-old brother Muhammad Aqib Mahmood and an acquaintance, 43-year-old Mohamad Sodikin Ritban, when they raised the question.

They wanted Arman to help them enter Batam, so they could visit their families who were based there. They needed a boat to take them to a location in Singapore waters, where they would transfer to a foreign boat.

Due to travel restrictions caused by COVID-19, they were unable to visit their families in Indonesia so they decided to go via Batam island. 

Arman, who worked as a steersman manoeuvring the craft to transport goods for a company, agreed to help. He knew that his brother has a family in a village in Batam - although Aqib is not legally married there - and had been travelling between the two locations frequently before the pandemic hit.

In the wee hours of Oct 30 last year, Arman steered his vessel from Marina South Pier towards a location in the sea south-east off St John's Island.

He deliberately turned off his transponder to avoid detection by the Police Coast Guard, and was instructed to time his departure to coincide with the Indonesian boat that would be waiting to pick the men up.

At around 1.20am, the boat from Indonesia stopped beside Arman's craft, and Aqib and Sodikin jumped in. The boat sped off towards Batam, but Arman was arrested soon after by the Police Coast Guard, which had detected an unknown vessel in the water.

Aqib later returned to Singapore through Kusu Island in late November last year and was arrested. He was given two months' jail in December. Sodikin was also nabbed after returning to Singapore and is currently remanded, pending his court case.

Arman asked for a second chance, saying that he hoped he would not be imprisoned for too long and that he had a sick wife in Johor Bahru.

"I know I was wrong and I attempted to explain this to ICA (Immigration and Checkpoints Authority) the other day," he said through an interpreter. "I did not do this for the money, I just wanted to help. I know what I did was wrong."

For abetting a person to leave Singapore by an unauthorised departure point, he could have been jailed between six months and two years, and fined up to S$6,000.

For deliberately turning off the transponder on his vessel, he could have been fined up to S$20,000.

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