Singaporean PR's family robbed in JB home

He had just arrived at work yesterday morning when his mother called. Their family had been robbed.

Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

"We are so 'light' now. We have no wallet, no IC, no driving licence," said the mother of Singapore permanent resident Kevin Lee, 28, who only wanted to be known as Mrs Lee, 55.

The ordeal began when Mr Lee's father, 60, had taken out the rubbish and was about to clean the windscreen of his daughter's Toyota Vios, parked just in front of the house.

That was when he spotted the two men approaching leisurely. They were wearing collared shirts. One even had a tie.

Just people coming home from work, he thought.

Until he felt somebody clamp his left hand.

He turned and another man grabbed his other arm, pulling him towards the house.

Said the senior Mr Lee: "They shouted at me to get in. I said, 'Let's settle this outside,' and even deliberately fell in the garden to try to stop them."

Mrs Lee and her god-sister were watching TV when the family's pomeranian-shih tzu crossbred dog began barking.

Looking up, she saw the two skinny men in their 20s approach with her husband, one of them with an arm around Mr Lee's neck.

Said Mrs Lee: "I knew it was trouble. My god-sister panicked and fled to the kitchen; I called for her to give them the money."

But the robbers were not satisfied with the 5,000 ringgit ($2,000)haul and taped the family's mouths and wrists with black duct tape before ordering them into the airwell.

"One of the men, wielding a parang, said, 'If you don't make the dog shut up, I'll hack him.'"

A third man wearing a ski mask and carrying a parang appeared.

The family said he seemed to be the ringleader as he gave instructions to the other two, who smelt of liquor and appeared to be on drugs.

The men began ransacking the rooms in their three-bedroom terrace house, starting from the innermost one, which belongs to her 31-year-old daughter, who got home 15 minutes into the ordeal.

A man with a knife took her bag, though she managed to retrieve a mobile phone.

Trembling in the airwell, her wrists taped, Miss Lee SMSed a cousin on the sly: "Call the police. We're getting robbed."

Ten minutes later, she tried the friend who had just dropped her off.

Neither responded.

The robbers eventually took every bag in the house.

Mrs Lee estimates she lost almost 10 luxury-brand bags.

Most of them had sentimental value.

They included her first-ever designer bag bought by her husband in Hong Kong and two Louis Vuitton bags from her sister, one of which was for her 50th birthday.

The robbers also plundered indisciminately, stealing the family's three-month-old, 42-inch flat-screen TV, two bottles of 21-year-old whiskey, expensive cameras and also work documents and facial masks.

They then re-taped the family's wrists, further securing Miss Lee's wrists to the window sill with a belt and tying Mr Lee's to the airwell's door handle with a dog leash.

The robbers loaded their loot into Mrs Lee's Toyota Camry in the driveway and left, making off with Mr Lee's Nissan X-Trail SUV as well.

The family could only call the police after they had wriggled free of the tape.

Miss Lee said the police arrived at 2am to take statements from the victims and again at 3am to photograph the scene and dust for fingerprints.

The family said it was the third time the house had been broken into.

The first attempt occured about 15 years ago; the subsequent attempt was about five years back, when Miss Lee returned to see drawers upended and a "hole in the roof".

Said Mr Kevin Lee: "Previously, robbers used to come when the owners were not at home. They're getting bolder."

Taman Pelangi was identified by Johor police in August 2009 as a crime hotspot.

Then-Johor police chief Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff said that robberies and snatch thefts were common in the area.

In May last year, the Malaysian Home Ministry allocated RM1.5 million (S$610,000) to the Johor Baru city council to improve the city's safety and security infrastructure.

Proper lighting and safe pedestrian walkways were introduced in crime-prone areas in Johor Baru, including Taman Pelangi.

Despite these precautionary measures by the police, the area has still seen its fair share of violent crime in recent years.

ORIGINAL SOURCE
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