32-year-old Muhammad Sufyan Ruslee, who is a member of the Omega secret society, was sentenced on 7 November to 8 years and 9 months imprisonment, and 8 strokes of the cane after being convicted of drug trafficking under the Organised Crime Act.
He had run a drug selling operation at a coffeeshop in Geylang with 3 other gang members, selling new psychoactive substances including 5-fluoro-MDMB-PICA, which is a Class A drug.
The synthetic drug is similar to cannabis and goes by names such as “mushroom” or “butterfly”.
Sufyan was brought into the group in March 2019 after he told 45-year-old Hermanto Abdul Talib that he wanted to earn more money.
Sufyan’s job was to collect the drugs from a supplier, Yunos, every day and place the drugs in boxes that were attached to 2 bicycles near the coffeeshop.
The 2 other gang members, 41-year-old Shafie Osman and 53-year-old Fadilah Haron, would then collect the drugs from him directly or from the bicycle boxes, and sell the drugs at about $60 to $70 per packet to about 20 to 30 customers daily.
Sufyan made about $20,000 from his involvement.
The Geylang coffeeshop was raided on 16 July 2019 by the Central Narcotics Bureau, with a total of 60 packets of drugs being seized.
Sufyan and his fellow gangsters were arrested that day.