Public Prosecutor v Thina Vengades Rao

Thina Vengades Rao, a 29-year-old Malaysian, worked as a lorry attendant for a Johor Bahru company delivering bean sprouts to Singapore. On 18 December 2020 the lorry he was riding in was stopped for a routine inspection at Woodlands Checkpoint. An immigration officer found a blue Nike bag behind the front passenger seat and asked him to retrieve it. He said it was too heavy, took a few minutes to get it out, and, on the officer's account, handed it over empty; black-taped bundles were then found behind the seat. Seven bundles were seized. They held ten packets found to contain not less than 42.18g of diamorphine and one packet found to contain not less than 330.8g of methamphetamine.

He was tried in Criminal Case No 16 of 2025 on two charges of importing controlled drugs under s 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. He accepted that he knew the bag held the bundles but said a man called Deva gave them to him in Johor Bahru to pass to Deva's brother in Singapore, telling him they were chemicals that could cause a virus if touched. He said he believed they were chemicals for cleaning toilets. The Defence also argued that he had a mild intellectual disability that made him gullible, and that the chain of custody of the drugs had not been proved.

1. Whether the accused was in possession of the drugs in the black bundles
2. Whether the chain of custody from seizure to analysis was broken
3. Whether the accused rebutted the presumption that he knew the nature of the drugs
4. Whether the accused had a mild intellectual disability that affected his knowledge

On possession, the accused had opened the bag and handled a bundle when Deva gave it to him, so he knew the bundles were there and the presumption of possession in s 18(1)(a) applied. Nothing suggested that any bundle had been planted by someone else, and the presumption was not rebutted.

On chain of custody, the Prosecution called every person who handled the exhibits, accounting for their movement from seizure to the Health Sciences Authority. The court rejected the Defence's points: the accused's absence during processing was due to COVID-19 measures and did not break the chain; leaking residue was bagged with its packet; and storing the sealed packets in an officer's locked office over a weekend raised only a theoretical possibility of tampering.

On knowledge, the court found the presumption in s 18(2) unrebutted. The accused's conduct at the checkpoint showed an attempt to obstruct the officer, and he twice told the officer he did not know what the bundles were, never mentioning chemicals. He repeatedly told investigators he first met Deva at a party the night before his arrest, but phone records showed many calls with Deva earlier that month and messages discussing customs checks shortly before the party; he later admitted he had known Deva for months. His account of what the bundles held kept changing, and Deva's reply to a message the police had scripted spoke of motor parts, not chemicals. The many red flags, which he did not query, supported the inference that he knew.

On intellectual disability, the court preferred the Prosecution's experts. The accused scored 95 on one intelligence test, in the average range, and the court accepted that a true score is likelier to be the higher one. His difficulties were explained by limited education, poor English, attitude and lack of self-discipline, and he lived and worked independently. The Defence psychiatrist's finding of gullibility rested on the accused's false account of Deva and on facts not in his report. Even if a mild intellectual disability were shown, the Defence did not explain how it rebutted the presumption, given his evasive conduct when caught.

The High Court convicted the accused on both importation charges. The Prosecution and Defence agreed that he was a courier, and he had received a certificate of substantive assistance, so the court used its discretion under s 33B(1)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act instead of imposing the death penalty. It sentenced him to life imprisonment and the minimum of 15 strokes of the cane for each charge, with caning capped at 24 strokes in aggregate.