STI News: Man jailed for trying to sell smuggled civet meat

June 4, 2003

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Man jailed for trying to sell smuggled civet meat

A 46-YEAR-OLD man who tried to sell a huge quantity of meat products, including

civet meat, which had been smuggled into Singapore, was jailed for six months

and fined $10,000 yesterday.

Electrician Lim Thiam Hock was caught here in March by officers from the

Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), who were acting on a tip-off.

They went to a warehouse within the compound of Hong Lim Industries in Penjuru

Road, Jurong, on March 24 and found a container, used as a cold room, stuffed

with most of the 997kg of meat products, as well as a Singapore-registered van

used to store some of the meat.

Apart from civets, the haul included pork cuts and pig intestines, and other

game meat like monkeys, bats and snakes.

'The recent Sars outbreak in the region, and the suspected link of the

coronavirus to civets, is a cause for concern,' AVA prosecutor Yap Teck Chuan

said yesterday.

Investigations showed that Lim had bought the meat from a Malaysian called

Kumar. He had collected the smuggled items from him at a carpark in Boon Lay

Place.

Lim admitted that he knew the meat products were imported illegally from

Malaysia, and the cold store had not been licensed.

Yesterday, the prosecutor asked for a deterrent sentence, saying such offences

were hard to detect.

He pointed out that there was no AVA-approved slaughterhouse or processing

plant for pork in Malaysia, and the products might well have been processed in

backyards where the hygiene level was dubious.

The animals from which these meat products came from might also have been

diseased, he pointed out, adding that it was very possible the meat had been

contaminated with antibiotic or hormone residues from animal feed.

Lim's lawyer, Mr Choo Si Sen, said in mitigation that his client had suffered

great financial loss and that all the seized products had been destroyed.

The van was forfeited.

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