Cabby turns PI to nab his robber

Cabby turns PI to nab his robber

He spends four hours tracking down passenger who robbed him of handphone

By Elysa Chen
January 18, 2009

IT WAS an incident right out of a cops-and-robbers flick.


WHERE: Mr Tng indicating the direction in which the robber ran. He was later nabbed by the police. --TNP PICTURE: ELYSA CHEN

The only difference was, he was no cop, but a taxi driver who had been robbed by his passenger.

His passenger had snatched his handphone and fled without paying.

But cabby Jason Tng was not about to let him off.

He stayed at the scene for four hours, did a bit of detective work and eventually nabbed the culprit.

While Mr Tng, a driver of 10 years, said that passengers trying to hitch free rides are not uncommon, it is the first time he has come across one who not only had the nerve to evade paying his fare, but also took his handphone.

Mr Tng, 45, said: 'These are the actions of a really cowardly man. He was really cheap.'

Around 10am on Wednesday, Mr Tng had picked up a man in his 40s from Tampines.

The man told him that he needed to pick up a wheelchair-bound person from Block 5 at Lorong Lew Lian.


WHAT: Mr Tng pointing to where he had left his handphone, allegedly stolen by the man. Another handphone was placed there for this photo.

When they reached their destination, MrTng stopped his taxi and opened his boot.

But his passenger quickly walked away from the taxi.

Starts searching

It was only after a 10-minute wait outside that MrTng realised that something was amiss and went in search for the passenger, who, by then, was nowhere to be found.

He approached a schoolboy sitting at the void deck, who told him that his passenger had run towards another block of flats.

He realised he had been duped.

Mr Tng returned to his taxi intending to call the police on his handphone. But he found that his handphone had also been stolen.

Mr Tng said: 'I was very angry. If he wanted to run away with my taxi fare, that's okay. The fare was around $8. But I didn't want to lose the few hundred contacts in my SIM card.

'Also, he seemed like a seasoned cheat, from the way he knew how to alight at a different block from the one he stayed in.

'I was also very angry with myself. I let my guard down because the passenger was so chatty and friendly. That was why I didn't want to let him off just like that.'

Mr Tng went to a nearby coffee shop to call the police. Two policemen arrived, took down his statement and tried to lift the suspect's fingerprints off the door of the taxi. They left soon after.

But Mr Tng wanted to try and find the man himself.

At the coffee shop, he confirmed his suspicions that his passenger was a seasoned cheat when, after describing his passenger to some customers there, he learnt that the same man had cheated another taxi driver last Sunday.

He said: 'They told me that the taxi driver had shouted, 'Robbery! Robbery!' and that his handphone had also been stolen.'

Some residents told him that the man lived on the ninth storey of the block opposite the coffee shop.

With only a description of the man and his shoes - white with the red markings - which Mr Tng had noticed, the cabby went to the ninth floor to look for theman.

He found the unit the man was living in because the shoes had been left outside.

Mr Tng called the police again, telling them that he knew where the suspect lived.

Then he camped out near the lift lobby on the ground floor in case the man left his house.

Ten minutes before the detectives came, the man came out of the lift.

Mr Tng said: 'I saw him, he saw me. Then, he ran up. I gave chase. He was so frantic, his slippers came off. I chased him until the fifth floor, but I got tired, so I let him believe that he had escaped, and went downstairs again to wait for the police.'

When the police arrived later, they captured the man and led him away in handcuffs.

By then, he had already thrown away MrTng's SIM card.

Smiling, Mr Tng said: 'He was clever, because he knew how to alight at a different block from his own, but still not clever enough, because I was able to nab him eventually.'

He added: 'It was the shoes that led to his arrest.'

A police spokesman said that a man in his 20s has been charged in court with theft.

Source: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,190077,00.html?