Man jailed, caned for role in cellphone heist
Driver admits feeding info to friend about cargo; $1.2m robbery left colleague dead

A DELIVERY driver was sentenced to six years in jail and 12 strokes of the cane yesterday for his part in planning a robbery that left one of his colleagues dead.

Ragu Ramajayam, a driver for freight-forwarding company Sterling Agencies, fed information to a friend about a delivery of cellphones being carried out by fellow driver Wan Cheon Kem on May 30 last year.

Mr Wan was transporting 10 pallets of Sony Ericsson phones worth US$823,500 (S$1.25 million) from the Changi Airfreight Centre to Henderson Road that morning when he was waylaid by three men, who staged a minor collision with his lorry along Changi Coast Road. He was assaulted and the cargo was stolen.

Mr Wan, 46, died of head injuries six days later in Changi General Hospital.

Yesterday Ragu, 37, admitted to an amended charge of abetting Arsan Krishnasamy Govindarajoo in the robbery.

He had given Arsan the registration number of Mr Wan's lorry and details of the cargo he would be carrying. They decided to target Mr Wan's lorry because, unlike many other drivers, he worked alone without a cargo hand.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Stanley Kok Pin Chin said Arsan told Ragu he would recruit others to commit the crime and reward him for the information.

On May 30, Ragu learnt that Mr Wan had been assigned to transport 2,700 cellphones. Telephone records showed Ragu and Arsan spoke 11 times between 5.31am and 7.25am.

Arsan, 39, together with his alleged accomplices - Nakamuthu Balakrishnan, 48, Daniel Vijay Katherasan and Christopher Samson Anpalagan, both 23 - waited for Mr Wan to emerge from the airfreight centre that morning.

Arsan is then believed to have driven off in a different direction to await Balakrishnan's call while the rest followed Mr Wan in another lorry.

Along Changi Coast Road, the trio then faked a minor accident, forcing Mr Wan to stop. When he got out of the vehicle, Mr Wan was bashed with a baseball bat. The trio then carried him into his lorry and drove both vehicles to a Pasir Ris Park carpark, where they loaded the mobile phones onto Arsan's lorry.

So far, 2,158 phones have been recovered.

Ragu was arrested on June 1.

DPP Amarjit Singh urged District Judge See Kee Oon to impose a sentence close to the maximum 10 years allowed.

Ragu, he said, had betrayed his company and colleague in giving Arsan and his accomplices information they would have otherwise found difficult to acquire.

'His conduct was motivated by greed and is utterly reprehensible and deserving of strong condemnation,' he said.

'It is clear...the accused had played a vital role in the ultimate orchestration and execution of the robbery plan,' said DPP Singh.

'Indeed, he was the vital cog in the wheel and without him and his information, the robbery would have been stymied at the planning stage.'

In sentencing, District Judge See considered Ragu's position of trust, the high value of the cargo and the fact that Mr Wan died.