Ang Soon Tong is a secret society based in Singapore and Malaysia. According to a former police officer, the society was active as early as the 1950s, mainly in the Sembawang area. In 1998, a 19-year-old youth was arrested for setting up a website dedicated to the society.
Punch Coomaraswamy was a Singaporean judge, diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore between 1966 and 1970, and Singapore Ambassador to the United States between 1976 and 1984.
On 13 March 1997, at one of the HDB flats in King George's Avenue, Kallang, 53-year-old Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy was discovered dead in her bedroom by her son. Sivapackiam was found to have been stabbed three times in the neck and she died from the wounds. During police investigations, Sivapackiam's tenant Gerardine Andrew, a 36-year-old prostitute, told police that on the day of the murder, she returned to the flat and saw three people attacking her landlady and robbing her, and they threatened her to leave after briefly holding her hostage.
On 26 February 1993, inside their matrimonial flat at Hougang, Singapore, a married couple were discovered dead by both their son and youngest daughter. The victims of the alleged killings were 53-year-old Lau Gek Leng and 55-year-old Luke Yip Khuan. It was determined that the killings were perpetruated due to a robbery, because the Lau family's television set and VCR were missing from the flat. On the same day, a neighbour of the couple, 38-year-old Jamaludin Ibrahim, was arrested as a suspect due to a spanner belonging to him was found at the crime scene and one of Jamaludin's six daughters having witnessed him stealing the said missing items from the murdered couple's flat.
On 14 July 1993, 50-year-old sub-contractor Sim Ah Lek, who was also a moneylender, was killed by 37-year-old Phua Soy Boon, who was his creditor, after he refused Sim's request to lend him S$10,000. After killing Sim, Phua stole Sim's Rolex watch, diamond ring and S$9,000 in cash, and even stuffed the dead body inside a gunny sack before disposing of it at Jurong Swimming Complex, where it was found the next morning.
Lim Chwee Soon, alias Ah Soon, was a Singaporean armed robber who committed a total of three armed robberies between June and October 1995. In his latest robbery, Lim used his gun, a Colt .45, to fire seven shots and three of them caused severe injury to How Sau Che, the sales manager of the goldsmith shop robbed by Lim at the People's Park Complex on 30 October 1995.
On 27 October 1990, a thirty-year-old Malaysian named Lim Yeow Chuan, who was a transvestite, was found dead at Johore Road within Bugis, where it was a hotspot for prostitution of transvestites prior to its demolition in the 1990s. According to his colleagues, Lim was last seen with two young Indian men before he was discovered dead. In January 1991, two suspects - consisting of one Malaysian and one Singaporean - were arrested and charged with his murder. Later, while the Singaporean suspect Kuppiah s/o Saravanan was sentenced to five years' jail and twelve strokes of the cane for robbery, the Malaysian suspect Soosay a/l Sinnappen remained facing a murder charge.
On 7 October 2004, four-year-old Sindee Neo was abducted from her flat at Telok Blangah by 36-year-old Constance Chee Cheong Hin, who formerly had an affair with Neo’s father. Neo subsequently fell off her block and sustained head injuries, which resulted in her death five days later. Chee, who was allegedly responsible for Neo's fatal fall, was charged with murder, an offence which warranted the death penalty within Singapore's jurisdiction.
On 8 October 1993, at his Jalan Berseh flat, an Indian moneychanger named Shamsul Hameed was killed by his friend Jahabar Bagurudeen. Bagurudeen, a businessman, was said to have killed Shamsul due to them having argued earlier about sharing a prostitute. Bagurudeen was sentenced to death after the trial court accepted the same prostitute's testimony that she saw Bagurudeen killing the victim, and rejected Bagurudeen's argument that he killed Shamsul out of anger for the victim's alleged mistreatment of Bagurudeen before the murder. After losing his appeal and clemency plea, Bagurudeen was hanged on 2 June 1995.
On 30 May 2006, 46-year-old lorry driver Wan Cheon Kem, who was delivering 2,700 mobile phones, was attacked by three armed robbers who robbed him of the phones and assaulted him by bludgeoning him on the head at least 15 times with a baseball bat, leading to his death during his hospitalization six days later. The handphone heist, which occurred at Changi Coast Road, was masterminded by Arsan Krishnasamy Govindarajoo, who was informed of Wan's delivery task by Wan's colleague Ragu Ramajayam.
On 25 March 1988, at Bukit Timah, 49-year-old lorry driver Yeu Lam Ching was robbed and murdered by two men. The two men, Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman and Mazlan Maidun, were swiftly arrested and charged with murder. Mazlan, who directly stabbed the victim to death with a knife, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, while Abdul Aziz, who only robbed the victim and never took part in the stabbing, was found guilty of armed robbery and thus jailed for ten years and given 12 strokes of the cane. Mazlan was hanged on 21 January 1994 after losing his appeal.
On 25 October 1993, 34-year-old airport operation assistant Thampusamy Murugian Gunasekaran was murdered by three men while he and his friend were having supper at a coffee shop at Little India's Chander Road; the friend was also attacked but survived with minor injuries. Six months later, one of the assailants was charged with murder after he gave himself up to the police. The suspect, Anbuarsu Joseph, was found guilty of murdering Thampusamy and sentenced to death in August 1994, and he was hanged on 7 July 1995. Anbuarsu's two accomplices, who were yet to be identified, remained at large as of today.
On 17 May 2000, at a vacant plot of land in Bukit Timah, 36-year-old odd-job worker and moneylender Leong Fook Weng was found dead, wearing only his underwear and sustaining several stab wounds on his chest and neck. Investigations showed that Leong had been attacked and assaulted by four secret society members, and died as a result of a knife wound to his heart. The four attackers escaped Singapore after the killing, but two of them – See Chee Keong and Robson Tay Teik Chai – were discovered to be imprisoned in Cambodia and France respectively for unrelated drug offences, and the remaining two suspects – Lim Hin Teck and Ong Chin Huat – remained at large for the murder.
On 2 June 2001, at a vacant area in Kian Teck Road in Singapore, 23-year-old Thai national Saenphan Thawan was attacked by a gang of six Thai workers, after he had allegedly offended one of the attackers' girlfriend, who told her boyfriend about the victim's actions. Saenphan, who was the head operator of a drug trafficking and prostitution ring at Kian Teck Road, died as a result of the brutal assault, and out of the six killers, four of them were arrested and charged with murder, while the remaining two assailants remains on the run as of today. Out of the four captured, three of them were sentenced to death for murder and a fourth was given a jail term of nine years with caning for manslaughter.
Between November 1992 and September 1993, at two locations within Singapore, a group of Thai migrant workers committed armed robberies at two construction sites located in Lim Chu Kang and Tampines respectively, which resulted in the deaths of three foreign construction workers, one Myanmar citizen in November 1992 and two Indian citizens in September 1993. Five of these assailants were eventually identified and arrested, and brought to trial for the robbery-murders. In two separate trials, all the five accused were found guilty of gang robbery with murder, and sentenced to death in early 1995. These five men were eventually hanged on 15 March 1996.
On 13 November 1985, 33-year-old Indonesian fish merchant Nurdin Nguan Song was murdered at a hotel along Waterloo Street, Singapore. Nurdin died after he was slashed and stabbed repeatedly by two men, who were revealed to have been paid by Nurdin's business rival to attack him. Between 1988 and 1992, the two murderers were arrested after spending several years on the run from the police, and charged with murder. One of them, a Malaysian named Loh Yoon Seong, was found guilty of murdering Nurdin and sentenced to death, while the other, a Singaporean named Tan Swee Hoon, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and for having killed Nurdin and committed an armed robbery while on the run, Tan was jailed for 23 years and given 24 strokes of the cane.
On 28 April 1985, at his workplace in Tanjong Rhu, 38-year-old ice factory worker Samynathan Pawathai, alias Chelia Dorai, was attacked by eight men who sought revenge against one of Samynathan's friends, who hurt one of the attackers in an earlier fight, and Samynathan died as a result of grievous injuries sustained from the attack. Out of the eight murderers, only five were caught and charged with murder, while the remaining three perpetrators went on the run till today. Out of the five, two of the attackers - Abdul Ghaffur Parith Mohamed Kassim and S. Ganesan Shanmugam- were each jailed six years for manslaughter, while the other three - Kumar Nadison, Jabar Kadermastan and Chandran Gangatharan - were found guilty of murdering Samynathan and sentenced to death. The trio were hanged on 28 April 1995 after all their appeals were rejected.
On 14 February 1987, 47-year-old cake shop proprietor Lee Juay Heng was stabbed to death by three men during a robbery bid in Hougang, Singapore. The three robbers - Luah Kang Hai, Tan Joo Cheng and Ong Ah Lek - were all arrested and charged with murdering Lee during the robbery. The court proceedings in the case concluded with both Ong and Luah convicted of lesser charges of attempted armed robbery and imprisoned with caning, while Tan himself was sentenced to death in 1990 for stabbing Lee to death in spite of his claim of intending to rob but not to kill Lee.
On 25 October 1997, nearby Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, 18-year-old Png Hock Seng, a full-time National Serviceman and member of the Sio Gi Ho gang, was attacked by seven members of the Sio Koon Tong gang, which operated at Orchard Road. Png died from a stab wound inflicted on his back. The seven offenders, all youths between 16 and 19, were charged with murdering Png, whom they erroneously believed to be a member of a rival gang.
