A Singaporean man will have to spend weeks in jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of voluntarily obstructing officers from carrying out their duties by making thousands of silent calls within a week.
According to court documents, he apparently made the calls for “fun and enjoyment”.
37-year-old Foo Jia Hong made the plea yesterday (Aug 26), while three other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Made calls with stolen SIM card
According to CNA, Foo made 425 calls to the Yishun Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC) using an unknown number between Apr 21 and 23, where he wouldn’t utter a word during the calls.
Following a police report which was lodged by an officer at said NPC, investigations found that Foo had used a SIM card registered to a foreign worker to make the calls.
When questioned, the foreign worker said he had thrown the SIM card away.
Foo later admitted that he found the SIM card inside a second-hand phone cover he bought at a pasar malam (night market) in Ang Mo Kio around early February 2026.
He then did a search and learnt that the SIM card services were cheap and came with substantial call time and data, leading him to use it by topping it up with his EZ-Link card to continue using the services, including calling the police.
Called other NPCs
Aside from the Yishun NPC, Foo also made numerous calls to other NPCs between Apr 21 and 29, with 308 calls made to Bedok’s, 278 calls to Geylang’s, and 24 calls to Ang Mo Kio’s.
This brings the total number of calls made to 1,035 in a span of a week.
Foo later revealed that he obtained the NPCs contact numbers from their call directories or leaflets.
The court was told that out of the 425 calls made to the Yishun NPC, 330 were picked up by officers while the remaining went unanswered.
The prosecution argued that the unanswered calls had resulted in obstruction to the phone lines of the affected police centres as any subsequent phone calls will be put on hold in a queue, preventing other calls from being promptly answered.
Jail time
Following Foo’s arrest on May 11, he was remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for psychiatric assessment.
While seeking for a jail term of three to five weeks, the prosecution noted that Foo was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and mild intellectual disability.
However, they also said IMH had found no contributory link between Foo’s condition and actions.
Foo’s previous conviction in January 2025 for the communication of false messages was also brought up in court, but the prosecution didn’t delve into it.
Foo’s lawyer pleaded for lenient sentence, arguing that calling the NPCs was not equivalent to calling the 999 emergency hotline.
During sentencing, the judge explained that the court had to consider the fact that Foo has mild intellectual disability, while the foremost sentencing consideration was deterrence.
He was eventually jailed for 23 days.
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