SINGAPORE — When Syarifah Nur Nabilah Syed Omar quit her job as an active mobility enforcement officer with Certis Cisco, she remained in her team’s WhatsApp chat group that discussed the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA’s) daily plans to deploy officers.
She then forwarded a screenshot of one such plan to her friend Afendi Mohamed Rashid, a food delivery rider, so that they both knew where to ride their personal mobility devices (PMDs) without receiving tickets or summonses, a court heard on Thursday (June 30). Syarifah herself was also working as a food delivery rider then.
With the confidential information in hand, Afendi sent it to another chat group with 211 members. It was then leaked to at least three other chat groups used by PMD riders.
For violating the Official Secrets Act, Syarifah, 24, and Afendi, 37, were each jailed for a week.
They pleaded guilty to one charge each of communicating the deployment plan in contravention of the Official Secrets Act — an offence that carries a maximum punishment of two years’ jail and a fine of S$2,000.
‘DON’T SAY I NEVER PROTECT’
The court heard that LTA subcontracted Certis Cisco’s auxiliary police officers as active mobility enforcement officers, who would patrol pedestrian walkways to detect errant LTA users using modified devices, speeding, or compromising road safety.
Under this scheme, Syarifah was engaged as an active mobility enforcement officer from December 2020 to May last year.
Her team leader would disseminate their daily deployment plan through a WhatsApp chat group, comprising all the officers in the team.
This included details such as which officers were deployed to specific streets and park connectors, and what time they had to be there for patrol duties. The information would change each day.
None of the officers were authorised to send the information to people outside the team.
Syarifah did not leave the chat group and was not removed from it when she resigned on May 20 last year. For the next two weeks or so, she continued receiving the daily deployment plans.
On June 1 last year, she took a screenshot of that day’s plan and forwarded it to Afendi via Facebook Messenger to warn him.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Seah Ee Wei told the court that her former Certis Cisco team leader, 29-year-old Muhammad Khairee Salehan, had endangered the safety or secrecy of the information in violation of the Official Secrets Act by sending the plan in the WhatsApp chat group.
TODAY understands that Khairee was not prosecuted.
DPP Seah also told the court that Syarifah and Afendi would pass information to one another about enforcement efforts, so that they knew which places to avoid the enforcement officers who would give them tickets or summonses for riding their PMDs there.
Afendi then forwarded it to a WhatsApp chat group with 211 members who shared information about the deployment of active mobility enforcement officers.
They called the officers by the colloquial term “GM” or “green men” due to the vests they wore.
Afendi also wrote something along the lines of: “Don’t say I never protect, ah. Today GM deployment.”
Other persons then forwarded the screenshot to at least three other WhatsApp chat groups used by PMD riders.
DELETED EVIDENCE
Shortly after sending the screenshot, Syarifah deleted it and her message to Afendi out of fear of the police finding them.
Afendi also deleted the screenshot, as well as the chat logs with Syarifah and the WhatsApp chat group.
Their actions came to light after an LTA enforcement officer came across the leaked plan on an e-scooter chat group. His colleague filed a police report.
The court heard that Afendi later did not cooperate with the investigations. He refused to go to the police station for an interview, blocked the investigation officer’s number, and hung up on officers who informed him to go to the police station.
He was eventually arrested several months later in December last yeat.
On Thursday, DPP Seah sought one to two weeks’ jail for both Afendi and Syarifah.
Syarifah’s defence counsel, Mr Azri Imran Tan from IRB Law, said in mitigation that she only intended to share the deployment plan with one person and that she had no malicious intent.
Afendi, who did not have a lawyer, told the court that he is the sole breadwinner of his family and that his wife needs him due to her anxiety attacks.
Both will begin serving their sentences next month.