5 Teens Caught for Damaging HDB Letterboxes in CCK to Steal Parcels

Tell me how this sentence makes sense: Police arrested five 18-year-old male teens on Friday (11 Sept) in a suspected case of theft and vandalism…on letterboxes.

Yes, the letterboxes you see at every void deck.

So, what happened?

Patrolling Police Detected Suspicious Activities

Police officers from the Jurong Police Division were on patrol at 3am on Friday. Nothing new except that they spotted five teens “behaving suspiciously” at the void deck of Block 707 in Choa Chu Kang Street 53.

Ok, still not breaking COVID-19 rules but…

“During the checks, the officers discovered a number of parcels, believed to be stolen from letterboxes, in their possession,” police stated in a news release.

The youths were promptly arrested for theft with common intention.

Investigations are ongoing.

Believed to be Responsible for More Damages

Additionally, authorities believe the teens to be responsible for damaging six sets of letterboxes in the vicinity of Choa Chu Kang North 5 and Choa Chu Kang Street 53.

On Friday afternoon, SingPost issued a news release on the matter. A town council employee had reported the damages at 5.30am on the same day.

“Two Inspectors of Post were immediately dispatched to the affected blocks, where the lock mechanisms of the master doors were found to have been tampered with and damaged.”

The buildings concerned are Blocks 706, 707 and 708 along Choa Chu Kang Street 53 and Blocks 756, 757 and 758 along Choa Chu Kang North 5.

So if you live in these blocks, then maybe your parcels did arrive after all.

By 7am, SingPost has repaired the lock mechanism on the master doors.

The postal company urges affected residents to contact Choa Chu Kang NPC at 1800 765 9999.

Possible Jail Sentence

If found guilty of theft, the five suspects could be jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.

On the other hand, they could be jailed up to three years and fined up to S$2,000 for the offence of vandalism.

Any subsequent convictions of vandalism could result in three to eight strokes of the cane.

Small Packages Sent to Letterbox

The crime was possibly inspired by SingPost’s adjustments to small package delivery last year.

In October 2019, the national postal service provider announced that they would be ceasing doorstep delivery for small packages.

SingPost implemented the change to better delegate manpower following a sharp rise in package deliveries in the preceding months.

From December 2019 onwards, parcels of up to 2kg will arrive at the recipient’s letterbox via the Basic Package delivery service.

As a result, some items from our online shopping spree – which could be valuable – now await collection at the letterbox.

Furthermore, without any form of tracking and notification, we might forget about them sometimes.

In other words, it could be a while before residents took notice of their stolen parcels.