The expert, with years of experience in big-time crime and scams, arrived with the aim of raising its earnings, but immediately made some surprising discoveries.

Where the modern Hong Kong hoodlums wore Armani suits and aimed high, the Singaporeans were dressed in singlets, shorts and slippers, happy with a few dollars.

“When was the last time you kidnapped some tycoon, robbed a bank or imported heroin?” he asked the shocked audience.

“No! The government won’t like it,” replied the gang boss, but he revealed they had a great racket going on – smuggling chewing gum.

It was, of course, only a movie but it reflects a little of Singapore, especially the state of crime.

Reputed to have some of Asia’s safest streets, Singapore has had a stable crime history due to several factors, general affluence and tough laws and punishment that include hanging and caning for many offences.

But with a changing demography and a weaker economy, the picture has changed somewhat. The presence of more than a million foreigners, many of them young and single, may be making crime prevention harder. Increasingly, they’re making their way into the statistics.

In recent months, some high-profile murders involving chopped-up bodies, many of them foreigners, have been discovered in which heads and limbs were scattered all over the island.

At the same time Singapore’s falling crime rate, and its reputation for safety, may also be under threat after offences like housebreaking, robbery and snatch theft increased sharply in the first half of the year.

The jump may be a symptom of the economic malaise in this affluent city, which is just recovering from an economic downturn and rising unemployment.

Only a week ago, the authorities had cleared Changi Beach of a fair number of squatters unable to find work.

Some Internet sites have also posted pictures of homeless senior citizens sleeping at the void decks of residential estates.

During the first half of this year, the number of crimes in the state soared 28% to 21,285 from 16,617 for the same period last year, with large increases in housebreaking, robbery and snatch theft.

These levels have not been seen since the 1998 recession. They also indicated more criminal activities in the homes and education centres.

Home break-ins, for example, increased from 204 to 327 in the first half, up 60%, while burglaries at education and childcare centres have more than doubled, from 21 cases to 53.

“We are not ruling out macroeconomic factors such as unemployment, and are looking into the background of the offenders,” said a spokesman.

Cases of armed robbers terrorising people have also increased, according to police.

So far this year, 13 people have been arrested for committing 53 robberies. In the first half of last year, three serial robbers were responsible for 21 attacks.

A spokesman said: “We’ve not harked back to the 70s and 80s when the crime rate here was two to three times higher. Despite the increase in population, crime is not even as high.”

The battle against crime is also waged at the grassroots level. TV shows feature real crimes, including unsolved ones, with appeals for public information.

Some 30% of the crime is resolved with the public’s help.

Singapore has strict laws with harsh punishments such as caning and execution.

According to an Amnesty International report, 400 people were hanged (mostly for drug trafficking and murder) between 1991 and 2004. It claimed it is “possibly the highest execution rate in the world” per capita, but the Government says this figure is false and exaggerated.

Caning was introduced here by the British when they controlled Singapore as part of their colonial empire.

More than 1000 people (under 50 years of age) are caned in Singapore each year for both violent crimes and non-violent ones such as vandalism, molest, or overstaying one’s work visa.

Singapore, however, still enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

The crime scene may receive help from the strong anti-terrorism defence being erected in the city centres, including public cameras and armed police patrols.

A nationwide project is being planned to mount CCTVs on residential estates that will be wired to recorders situated in police posts and Town Councils. Citizens are worried that they will have to bear the new security costs.

But it was the camera which allowed police to solve the latest body-parts murder only 12 hours after they were discovered.

In the latest of a series of such cases, a 29-year-old Filipina maid, Guen Garlejo Aguilar, was caught on film while trying to discard the body parts of her victim, another Filipino domestic worker. The trial is awaited.

The victim’s head and four limbs were found outside the Orchard Road MRT station. Hours later, her torso was found at MacRitchie Reservoir, a heavily wooded park several kilometres away.

Three months earlier, Chinese national Liu Hong Mei was murdered by a 50-year-old Singaporean, who then chopped her body up into several pieces and dumped them into the Kallang River.

Unlike in bigger countries, Singapore’s small size and congested environment makes it hard for murderers to dispose of their victims’ bodies without adopting such horrible means.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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