Man gets 13 years' jail and caning for possessing a block of cannabis for trafficking
Narkkeeran Arasan was facing "financial stress" in 2021 and decided to resort to selling cannabis for "fast cash".
The State Courts in Singapore. (File photo: CNA/Calvin Oh)
SINGAPORE: Wanting to make some fast cash, a man ordered a "book" of cannabis from an unidentified person and paid S$3,000 for it.
He collected the controlled drug from a drain in Marsiling and intended to sell it for profit, but was nabbed while commuting in a Grab car by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).
Narkkeeran Arasan, 45, was sentenced to 13 years' jail and 10 strokes of the cane on Monday (Jan 9) for one count of having in his possession 329.99g of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.
The court heard that the Singaporean was facing "financial stress" in 2021 and decided to resort to selling cannabis for "fast cash".
On Apr 11, 2021, he ordered one "book" of cannabis, which he understood to mean 1kg in weight, from a contact he knew only as "R and R".
He paid S$3,000 for the cannabis. The next day, he collected a black plastic bag containing the drug from a drain in the Marsiling area.
He placed the plastic bag in a black Coach bag and boarded a Grab hire car.
CNB officers acted on information they had received and arrested Narkkeeran near the junction of Woodlands Avenue 9 and Gambas Avenue on Apr 12, 2021.
They searched the car and seized the black Coach bag on the floorboard behind the driver's seat.
The bag contained a block of vegetable matter within layers of plastic and tape. The block was examined and found to contain a mixture of at least 523.5g of vegetable matter and at least 413.5g of fragmented vegetable matter.
The block weighed at least 937.2g and was a cannabis mixture.
Cannabis is a Class A controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
A search of Narkkeeran's home revealed nothing else that was incriminating.
Investigations also revealed that Narkkeeran had no customers yet when he was caught with the drug.
The prosecution called for 15 years' jail and 11 strokes of the cane for Narkkeeran.
He had been admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre in 2019 for drug consumption, said the prosecutor.
The prosecution laid out a table from a previous court case outlining the indicative starting points for trafficking in cannabis.
It goes from five to six years for up to 99.1g of cannabis, to 13 to 15 years for 297.2 to 329.9g of cannabis.
The offence of possessing a Class A controlled drug for the purposes of trafficking carries a minimum of five years' jail and five strokes of the cane, and a maximum of 20 years' jail and 15 strokes of the cane.
