6 admit being part of group that stored nearly 58,000 vape items in Lentor, Sembawang ‘warehouses’

SINGAPORE – Two syndicate leaders, and four subordinates, were on Sept 17 convicted for being part of a criminal group that stored nearly 58,000 vape products in two “warehouses” here.

Nearly 17,000 of the products were vapes.

One of the rented “warehouses” was a terrace house in Lentor, and the other was a condominium unit in the Canberra area in Sembawang.

Wong Ee Wei, 29, and Kenneth Tan Hong Chang, 31, had admitted they were leaders in the group. Wong earned up to $280,000 while Tan earned around $36,000.

They took instructions from a person known only as “Nobody”, purportedly based in Malaysia.

The leaders managed the “warehouses” and the group’s finances. They also coordinated the deliveries of vape products from Malaysia as arranged by “Nobody”.

Three others - Ng Tai Lun, 27, Tiffany Lim Hui Peng, 30, and Adrian Chia Hong Qing, 33 - had acted as “local distributors” in the three-tiered syndicate.

Those in this middle rung earned up to $8,000 monthly, and met “area distributors” to hand them the orders for the day and collect earnings.

The sixth offender, Tan Yi Tan, 36, was an “area distributor”, occupying the lowest rung in the syndicate.

The court heard that the group delivered up to 210 orders of vaporisers and components daily.

Chia earned around $100,000, Ng about $40,000, and Tan Yi Tan around $38,400.

On Sept 17, each offender pleaded guilty to between two and nine charges, for offences including being a member of the syndicate.

Lim is Kenneth Tan’s wife.

He had pleaded guilty to the most number of charges. He was also involved in multiple unrelated offences including cheating and disturbing the public peace by fighting.

Wong, who was the other leader, had pleaded guilty to two charges and both of them were linked to the syndicate.

The prosecution stated in court documents that Wong became the local syndicate leader in mid-2022.

He was introduced to Nobody that year, and recruited other individuals including Chia.

Wong stopped being the leader in December 2024, and became a “sleeping partner” after that.

Court documents stated that Tey Ler Wei, 30, took over the position before Kenneth Tan became a local syndicate leader in February 2025.

Lim had rented the Canberra condominium, which she occupied with Kenneth Tan. She earned about $44,000 while working for the syndicate.

The Lentor house was rented by another person.

The syndicate distributed vaporisers from mid-2022 to October 2025, and operated both “warehouses”.

The six offenders will be sentenced in October.

A seventh offender, Roy Tan Jun Jie, 34, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail and fined $45,000 on Aug 19.

The prosecution said Kenneth Tan was also involved in other offences not linked to the syndicate.

He was earlier placed on a remission order, where he was supposed to keep himself out of trouble from April 5 to July 6, 2023.

However, he re-offended when he went to a Jalan Besar nightspot on June 12, 2023, and got into a brawl.

He was arrested and released on bail the next day. But he was caught driving a car two months later, after being disqualified for drink driving.

Kenneth Tan was arrested and released on bail again on Aug 12, 2023.

But he committed offences including cheating involving nearly $49,000 between December 2023 and January 2024.

He was arrested and released on bail for the third time on Feb 14, 2025, and committed offences linked to the syndicate.