House Break-ins and Thefts Committed by Foreigners

Mr Speaker, the Member has asked about foreign criminals who break into private properties to commit theft. Such an act is classified as housebreaking by Police. For the nine-month period of January to September 2012, a total of 428 housebreaking cases were reported. This is a 15% decrease when compared to the same period in 2011.

In the first nine months of 2012, Police solved 91.6% of the cases reported. A total of 189 persons were arrested for housebreaking, of which 34, or 18%, were not Singapore Citizens or Permanent Residents. This is 19% lower than the January to September 2011 period. Of the 34 persons arrested in 2012, 17 were on Social Visit Passes, 16 were Work Permit Holders and one was an illegal immigrant.

Police adopts a holistic approach in crime fighting, comprising intelligence, enforcement, public education, community involvement and international cooperation. The community also plays an important role in crime prevention, by taking proactive measures to safeguard their properties and keeping a lookout for suspicious characters in their neighbourhood.

Police has been monitoring the situation closely together with ICA, and will act firmly against foreign criminals who attempt to commit crime in Singapore.

Mr Speaker, Sir, some supplementary questions for the Senior Minister of State. I am sorry that the Senior Minister of State's answer came very quickly, so maybe I did not hear him correctly. My question was about the first 10 months of 2012, and the first part of his answer dealt largely with the first nine months, so I wonder whether he could clarify that.

Secondly, the Police has made it public that they noted a surge in housebreaking cases committed by Latin Americans recently. I would like to ask specifically about this phenomenon, for these housebreaking cases which are committed by professional burglar groups, how many cases are there? Are they geographically spread out in Singapore or are they concentrated in certain areas? For this group of Latin Americans, could the Senior Minister of State tell us how they entered Singapore, as in, did they fly in directly from their home countries or did they come by land, for example, from some neighbouring countries?

Lastly, I wonder whether the Government is considering the conditions of Social Visit Passes for certain groups of people. I know it is a difficult area but, right now, I think most people can enter Singapore for one month which also allows these professional burglars to plan and the time to commit serious cases. So, I wonder if at some point in time, the Ministry would look at restricting the number of days that people can stay in Singapore, perhaps on a case-by-case basis, or based on certain originating countries.

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I thank the Member for the question. Unfortunately, I only have the statistics up to September because those for October are not ready. For the other specific questions on Latin Americans, these were not alluded to in the question, so I do not have the numbers with me. But if the Member would like to file a parliamentary question (PQ) on it, I will be happy to answer it.

On the operational issues, unfortunately, many of the things that the Police and ICA are doing are very sensitive and we cannot divulge them. In our Crime Watch series, we can see cases being solved in just half an hour, but really a lot of work and intelligence are being put into it. I assure Members that we will take a very strong stance against anyone coming into Singapore to commit crime. We will turf them out when we can, and work with international authorities as much as possible.

A supplementary question again for the Senior Minister of State. In the news reports so far that we have seen, there were reports in June and also in October about these burglaries committed by foreign groups. I think in July as well, the Police issued a media release talking about the fact that they had managed to foil a group from Hong Kong which was on a transnational housebreaking operation. That was announced publicly. I would like to ask whether the Government is concerned that the choice of Singapore as a housebreaking destination by foreign groups is something that we should be concerned about. Is there a trend of concern?

In general, the Police is very concerned about any crime that is perpetrated on our citizens or their properties. Therefore, we will take all measures to ensure that this particular trend that will affect us, we will try and stem it as quickly as possible. We do not see yet a surge in the number of foreign syndicates coming into Singapore. They know clearly that we are very strong in solving our cases, as I mentioned to the Member – 91.6% of these cases were solved and we have deterrent sentences against them. I hope those are strong enough messages to any foreign elements who think that they can easily break into our houses and not get detected. But more importantly, it is essential for all of us to take the prerequisite proactive measures to ensure that our houses, properties and ourselves are properly protected. Take proactive measures to put burglar alarms, cameras, in addition to the enforcement actions that are being taken on the part of the Police.

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