20-year-old Tan Yan Rong pleaded guilty on 1 July to a charge under the Arms and Explosives Act, with another charge being considered for his sentencing on 10 August.
He was found with 19 replica guns during a police investigation, as well as selling at least 16 other similar weapons.
Tan had gone on Taobao, an online shopping platform, to buy the replica guns for the purposes of keeping them for himself and reselling them online.
What happened
The ICA detected four sets of airsoft guns during an operation at Lam Soon Industrial Building in Hillview Avenue on 7 September 2020, and reported it to the police.
A consignment with Tan’s address was found by the police during their investigations, with a plastic toy revolver and three plastic toy rifles being found inside a container.
Tan was arrested on suspicion of having committed offences under the Arms and Explosives Act on the same day that ICA made the report, and 19 replica guns were found at his home and seized at about 10pm that day.
ST Engineering Synthesis assessed the guns as being capable of shooting pellets and were thusly defined as “arms” under the Arms and Explosives Act, which Tan was not authorised to possess.
He bought the guns either to keep or resell to local buyers via Carousell, where he could deliver the items to the buyer in person and accept payment via PayNow or Cash on Delivery.
Tan admitted to buying the guns online from 2018/2019 to about a few weeks before his arrest, and investigators retrieved his WeChat and Taobao logs, showing that he had at least 5 customers from March to Sepmetb 2020 to whom he had sold at least 16 of the guns and accessories.
Each of the guns was sold for about $100 to $620.