Malaysians charged in Lankan child smuggling attempt

SINGAPORE: A Malaysian woman and her two grown children were charged last week with trying to sneak three Sri Lankan children to London.

The trio were arrested on Thursday evening at Changi Airport after a security officer suspected the children’s identities did not match the Malaysian passports they held.

The children, all about 11 years, were about to board a plane for London with the suspects, according to the charges filed.

Police are probing whether the incident is connected to a larger child-smuggling operation. Police spokesman Ng Siew Hua said the children be cared for while investigations continue.

Looking grim, Vigiletchumi Suparayan, 61, was produced at a special court session on Saturday with her son Sangar Shanmugam, 39, and daughter Pathmavathy Shanmugam, 31. They were charged with conspiring with others to bring the three children to London.

A bespectacled Sangar, clad in white long-sleeved shirt, asked the judge to reduce the bail amount, which was set at $50,000 each. District Judge Shoba Nair rejected this and ordered the case to be brought up again on February 22. If found guilty, the three face up to three years imprisonment and a fine for using fake passports.

Last year, six people were jailed for child smuggling. That includes members of a Malaysian syndicate that brought China-born children into Singapore and then tried to take them illegally to parents in the US.

The group included a Singaporean man who was jailed 13 months for using his son’s passport to smuggle a China-born boy from Singapore to Honolulu, Hawaii. - The Sunday Times, Singapore