{"id":13916,"date":"2025-11-23T18:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=13916"},"modified":"2025-11-23T18:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T10:00:41","slug":"sporean-and-his-chinese-wife-jailed-fined-for-illegal-cat-breeding-in-their-jurong-west-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=13916","title":{"rendered":"S&#8217;porean and his Chinese wife jailed, fined for illegal cat breeding in their Jurong West flat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\"><span><b>Andrew Wong<\/b><\/span><span><br \/><\/span><span><b>The Straits Times<\/b><\/span><span><br \/><\/span><span><b>Nov 21, 2025<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Thinking they had spotted a business opportunity, a married couple bred imported ragdoll cats at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">They imported one male and four female ragdolls, producing 30 kittens between May 2022 and May 2023, despite knowing it was illegal to do so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">They sold eight kittens for a total of $46,300.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On Nov 20,<span><a class=\"text-primary-500 hover:underline\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/married-couple-handed-weeks-jail-52-5k-fine-each-for-illegal-cat-breeding-from-their-spore-home\" target=\"_blank\"> Wen Tianhao and Qiu Shiwen, both 29, were each fined $52,500 and jailed for a week<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The couple had each pleaded guilty to one charge of operating a commercial breeding farm without a valid licence and 15 charges of keeping the cats they had bred for sale at home without a licence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Court documents showed that Wen, a Singaporean, and Qiu, a Chinese national who is a permanent resident, came up with a plan to open a cattery in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">They felt that the ragdoll cats sold in Singapore were of poor quality, and imported the five adults from overseas catteries to their home at Block 684A Jurong West Street 64.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">It was only about a year later in May 2022 that Wen contacted the National Parks Board (NParks) to inquire about obtaining a pet shop licence to sell cats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">He was told a <span><a class=\"text-primary-500 hover:underline\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/singapore-s-new-cat-licensing-rules-will-weed-out-backyard-breeders\" target=\"_blank\">valid licence was required<\/a><\/span> if he wanted to breed his pets for sale, and that commercial breeding of pets should be conducted only on licensed farms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Wen applied for a pet shop licence on June 1, 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">But around the same time, the Animal &amp; Veterinary Service (AVS) received feedback that the couple had been breeding cats at home for sale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">AVS investigated them, and on Sept 12, 2022, the pair were each fined $300 for keeping the cats they had illegally bred at their residence without a licence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Wen received approval for a pet shop licence two days later, on Sept 15, 2022, which clearly stated that only cats that were sourced from AVS licensed pet farms or other AVS approved local or overseas sources could be sold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">A day after receiving the licence, Wen wrote to AVS to ask for an exemption to allow him to sell the 11 kittens they had bred themselves, but the request was rejected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">He was told to rehome the 11 kittens through family and friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On Jan 18, 2023, AVS was again tipped off that the pair were breeding and selling ragdoll kittens from home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Inspections over two days in June 2023 led to seven cats being seized by the authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Another inspection on Aug 8, 2023, saw 14 more cats seized.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The prosecution said the case was one of the most egregious instances of unlicensed cats discovered by NParks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">It was later discovered that Wen and Qiu had started breeding the cats at home in May 2022, and had bred a total of 30 kittens from six litters before they were stopped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Court documents stated the pair had set up a website and social media accounts to advertise the sale of the cats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">They marked the cats for sale at three price levels, with prices escalating from classifications such as at &#8220;pet level&#8221;, &#8220;show level&#8221; and &#8220;supreme show level&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On the lower end, the kittens were marked for sale at between $4,000 and $5,000. Those earmarked at &#8220;supreme show level&#8221; were for sale at between $6,000 and $7,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Eight kittens were sold for between $4,500 and $6,500 each, for a total of $46,300.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">This is the second case this week involving dozens of animals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On Nov 19, Julia Nicole Moss, 50, was <span><a class=\"text-primary-500 hover:underline\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/21-5k-fine-for-woman-who-kept-79-dogs-at-her-home-in-unprecedented-case\" target=\"_blank\">fined $21,500<\/a><\/span> for keeping 78 poodles and a golden retriever at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">This is more than 26 times the limit of three dogs anyone can keep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">All 79 had not been licensed, while 71 did not have microchips.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">All the dogs were seized by NParks. Three were returned to Moss after she agreed to take out valid licences for them.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-md py-md xl:flex-row xl:items-center\"><span class=\"font-primary text-18 font-semibold leading-1.2 text-black\">Get more of Stomp&#8217;s latest updates by following us on:<\/span><\/div>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<p>Join the conversation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stomp.sg\/trending-now\/married-couple-jailed-week-fined-525k-each-illegal-cat-breeding-their-spore-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew WongThe Straits TimesNov 21, 2025 Thinking they had spotted a business opportunity, a married couple bred imported ragdoll cats at home. They imported one&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}