By Elena Chong
A MAN who imported four toy guns into Singapore without a permit was fined $15,000 on Tuesday.
Zainuddin Abdul Kader AS, 28, now unemployed, admitted to bringing in the controlled imports at the Singapore Post Centre at Eunos Road between March 30 and 31 last year.
A district court heard that Zainuddin, then an engineer, was in Hongkong for a holiday in March last year when he asked the owner of a shop selling replica toy guns if he could buy them and bring them back to Singapore.
The shop owner told him he 'had a way'' to help him. He instructed Zainuddin to buy a particular air-craft carrier model kit and a tank model kit from nearby shops. After he had done so and handed over the kits to the shop owner, Zainuddin paid HK$7,000 for four toy guns.
Two hours later, Zainudden returned to collect his items. He noticed the owner dismantling the toy guns and helped him to dismantle some parts of the carbine rifle. The shop owner placed some of the dismantled parts of the toy guns into the model kit boxes and told Zainuddin to declare the items as 'model kits'' and to air-mail them home.
Zainuddin knew that he was not allowed to import the toy guns into Singapore but decided to try doing so as he wanted to start a collection of toy guns. He could have been fined up to $100,000 or three times the value of the goods, whichever is greater, or jailed for up to two years or to both.
