{"id":61673,"date":"2026-06-18T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=61673"},"modified":"2026-06-18T12:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:27:00","slug":"man-admits-sending-sm-lee-doctored-photo-of-marina-bay-sands-on-fire-as-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=61673","title":{"rendered":"Man admits sending SM Lee doctored photo of Marina Bay Sands on fire as &#8216;prank&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>SINGAPORE: A man is facing jail time for sending an edited photo of Marina Bay Sands (MBS) on fire to Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong&#8217;s Facebook page while mentioning a &#8220;bomb&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Andie Tan Kok Yong, a 35-year-old Singaporean, pleaded guilty on Thursday (Jun 18) to one charge of knowingly transmitting a false message under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act.<\/p>\n<p>A second charge of obstructing the course of justice by performing a factory reset of his phone will be considered in sentencing.<\/p>\n<h2>THE CASE<\/h2>\n<p>In September 2025, Tan was using Facebook when he chanced on an image of Marina Bay Sands on fire.<\/p>\n<p>Despite knowing it was fake, he saved the image on his phone and sent it to Mr Lee&#8217;s official Facebook page via the Facebook messenger function at about 3pm on Sep 29, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>He also sent a message: &#8220;Bomb $1,500billion++wit management approved of 1st boss not merlion boss of tan jun yan&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He did so in order to prank SM Lee, and he knew that either Mr Lee or someone reviewing the content would think that MBS had been bombed, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p>An administrator of Mr Lee&#8217;s Facebook page who was monitoring the page at the time saw the image and message shortly after it was sent.<\/p>\n<p>Concerned, he lodged a police report and took a screengrab of the communications.<\/p>\n<p>The police informed the security management of MBS to step up security patrols and eventually identified Tan as the culprit.<\/p>\n<p>He admitted to being the person who sent the image and message.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecutor sought four to eight weeks&#8217; jail for Tan, saying he had essentially perpetuated a bomb hoax.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In essence, the accused had informed SM Lee (through his official Facebook page) that Marina Bay Sands had been bombed,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecutor added that bomb hoaxes are egregious and clearly intended to create fear, exploit general apprehension and anxiety, and have massive potential to cause major disruptions to the public.<\/p>\n<p>The target building here is of high value, he said, while acknowledging that the false transmission was not particularly credible.<\/p>\n<p>Tan said nothing in mitigation.<\/p>\n<p>Sentencing was adjourned to a later date.<\/p>\n<p>For knowingly transmitting a false message, he could be jailed for up to three years, fined up to S$10,000, or both.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/singapore\/man-jail-edit-photo-mbs-fire-lee-hsien-loong-6192056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE: A man is facing jail time for sending an edited photo of Marina Bay Sands (MBS) on fire to Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong&#8217;s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61674,"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-61673","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\/61673","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=61673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}