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WHEN the police raided a Sin Ming terrace house operating as an illegal gambling den, a neighbour was not surprised.
After all, just two weeks earlier, she had witnessed a dramatic rooftop escape by a youth when the police first showed up at the house.
The 53-year-old housewife, who wanted to be known only as Madam Ong, said the police were talking to some boys on the ground floor of her neighbour’s house.
Then she saw a boy leap out of a second-storey window onto the porch roof of the house.
He then tried to climb into her balcony on the second storey, but stopped when he saw her husband.
He then turned and escaped in the opposite direction.
“He ran along the rooftops of the line of terrace houses,” Madam Ong told The New Paper yesterday.
She said she was shocked by the boy’s dangerous attempt to escape from the police.
The police left shortly after.
But they returned again on Wednesday evening to raid the gambling den.
This time, they arrested 14 people, aged between 17 and 37 years old, for offences under the Common Gaming House Act.
A police statement said that officers from the Tanglin Police Division mounted an operation at about 6.15pm against an illegal gambling den located at a private residential unit in the Sin Ming estate.
When the police entered the house, its occupants were found to be engaging in a variant of a poker game. Among them were students from polytechnicsand secondary schools.
The New Paper understands that two of the students arrested were from a top boys’ school.
Two men believed to be managing the operations of the illegal gambling den were also arrested.
Various gambling-related paraphernalia, such as gaming chips, cards, poker tables and cash amountingto $1,850, were seized as case exhibits.
Arrived after police left
Madam Ong, who witnessed the raid on Wednesday, said that two men arrived at the house in a taxi about 30 minutes after the police had left.
They stood outside the gate and made a few phone calls before leaving. They returned later that night in a taxi and left again after making calls outside the gate.
Madam Ong said the gambling activities started a few months ago.
She said she had seen some men assembling the gambling tables at the front porch area of the house.
“They built two long and oval tables. They are obviously not meant for dining,” said Madam Ong.
She believed the gambling activities were held on the second storey as she often heard conversations about gambling from her room on the same level.
“Those guys smoked a lot.My house was always filled with smoke. Even though they had kept their windows closed, their smoke got into myhouse.”
A neighbour who declined to be named told The New Paper that he had often seen people comingto the house at all hours of the day.
He saw boys in all-white school uniforms and teenage girls arriving in taxis. The older ones drove flashy sports cars, he said.
They would stand outside the house and make calls on their mobile phones before someone wouldopen the door for them.
Fridays were the busiest days, said Madam Ong.
“The visitors would start coming in at around 6pm and leave the next morning at 6am. I believe there were easily more than 20 people inside the house on weekends,” she added.
Another neighbour said: “Once I woke up to go to the toilet at 4am and I peeped through my window and saw a red sports car parked outside my house. I was afraid someone would break into my house.
“I have always felt very safe living here until we started having these strangers showing up a few months ago.”
Madam Ong agreed, saying: “I have lived here for 15 years and it has always been safe and quiet. But on Aug 30, one of the houses down the road was broken into.
“Before this, I would leave the windows on the second storey open at night. Now I make sure that all my windows are tightly shut at night.”
Madam Ong said the visitors often parked their cars illegally along the narrow lane.
She and her husband sometimes returned home to find cars parked in front of her gate, blocking their car’s entry into her house.
“My husband sounded the horn but the people inside could not hear us. I had to get out of our car and knock long and hard on their gate before someone came out to move the car,” said Madam Ong.
“I believe many neighbours complained to them about the cars being parked illegally outside our houses, because we get fewer cars now.” Madam Ong noted that the visitors were mostly male, but she had also seen teenage girls in skimpy clothes entering the house.
She said: “Looking at how they dress, I suspected that there was more than just gambling inside the house.”
Police investigations are ongoing.
Under the Common Gaming Houses Act,Chapter 49, any person convicted of gaming in a common gaming house can be fined up to $5,000 or jailed for to six months, or both.
Anyone found guilty of managing or in any manner assisting in the management of a place kept or used as a common gaming house can be fined from $5,000 to $50,000, and jailed up to three years.
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