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SINGAPORE: A Malaysia-registered car that was used for illegal cross-border ferrying has been ordered to be forfeited to the state by a Singapore court.<\/p>\n
The owner of the vehicle, 31-year-old Malaysian Tkhisenwara Rau Athi Naidu, will be appealing against the forfeiture order.<\/p>\n
He wanted the car back, as he had borrowed about RM110,000 (S$35,365) to finance the car and had to service loan repayments for nine years.<\/p>\n
According to a judgment made available on Tuesday (May 26), Mr Tkhisenwara had pleaded guilty to using a Malaysia-registered car as a public service vehicle without a valid licence or valid insurance policy for third-party risks.<\/p>\n
Mr Tkhisenwara lived in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. He had used his vehicle to ferry a passenger from Sunset Way in Clementi, Singapore to Johor Bahru for S$70 (US$55).<\/p>\n
While the vehicle was insured, the policy did not cover the vehicle when it was used for hire or reward.<\/p>\n
At about 10.35am on Sep 30, 2025, Mr Tkhisenwara’s vehicle was stopped for checks at Woodlands Checkpoint. A passenger was in the vehicle.<\/p>\n
The vehicle was seized and impounded while court proceedings were underway.<\/p>\n
Mr Tkhisenwara was fined S$1,800 and banned from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for 12 months.<\/p>\n
The court noted that the Land Transport Authority had checked over 3,200 vehicles and impounded 185 vehicles for illegal cross-border ride-hailing services between July 2025 and Feb 27, 2026.<\/p>\n
The prosecution asked for Mr Tkhisenwara’s vehicle to be forfeited to the state. Forfeiture is mandatory under the Road Traffic Act.<\/p>\n
Mr Tkhisenwara asked for his vehicle back, saying he had borrowed about RM110,000 from a finance company and had to service loan repayments for nine years. He said this was a heavy financial burden, the court noted.<\/p>\n
He also said he had paid the court fine.<\/p>\n
A representative for the finance company did not object to the forfeiture, as he understood that it was mandatory.<\/p>\n
District Judge Shawn Ho said Mr Tkhisenwara’s outstanding loan liabilities cannot override the clear, mandatory phrasing set out in the act.<\/p>\n
“A court possesses no discretion to withhold the forfeiture order on mitigating grounds,” he said.<\/p>\n
Changes to cross-border taxis travelling between Singapore and Malaysia kicked in earlier this month, allowing for flexible drop-off points and additional pick-up locations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SINGAPORE: A Malaysia-registered car that was used for illegal cross-border ferrying has been ordered to be forfeited to the state by a Singapore court. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--TH3kJajY--\/c_crop,h_465,w_826,x_0,y_147\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:mediacorp,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2024\/03\/27\/state_courts_file_photo.png?itok=3YN6piVv","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2352,2079,11833,13899,23604,2849,16593,2248,22],"class_list":["post-55938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-appeal","tag-car","tag-crossborder","tag-ferrying","tag-forfeited","tag-illegal","tag-malaysiaregistered","tag-owner","tag-singapore","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55938","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=55938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}