September 16, 2026
Six Malaysian men have been sentenced in Singapore over one of the largest robberies in the country's history — an armed raid on a private high-stakes poker game in Bukit Timah that netted around $3.9 million in cash, watches, Ferrari keys and cryptocurrency taken straight off the victims' phones. Sentences run from seven years eight months to twelve years eleven months, with 24 strokes of the cane for everyone under 50, and more than $2.5 million has never been recovered.
The most valuable thing in the room was not the cash on the table. Shortly after 2am on 18 April 2024, a group of men carrying machetes and baseball bats walked into a bungalow in King Albert Park, one of the wealthier corners of Singapore's Bukit Timah district, and found eleven people inside — several of them in the middle of a private high-stakes poker game. They left with roughly $3.9 million, and the largest single component of it was moved not out of a safe but out of a phone.
This week, six Malaysian men were sentenced over what is now counted among the biggest robberies in Singapore's history.
When: just after 2am on 18 April 2024
Where: a bungalow in King Albert Park, Bukit Timah, Singapore
Target: a private high-stakes poker game — 11 people were in the property
Taken: around $3.9 million in cash, cryptocurrency and luxury watches, plus the keys to a Ferrari
Convicted: six Malaysian men, pleaded guilty to armed gang robbery and removing criminal proceeds from Singapore
Sentences: from 7 years 8 months to 12 years 11 months; 24 strokes of the cane for those under 50
Recovered: about $1.33 million — more than $2.51 million is still missing
Still at large: a seventh suspect, believed to have travelled to Thailand
Two in the morning in Bukit Timah
Prosecutors named Wong Chi Shan, 35, and Goh Boon Tong, 30, as the instigators of the operation. They were joined by Mohd Hamidon Ahmed, 49, Kartik Palaniappan, 34, Mohd Hashim Ismail, 51, and Muhammad Tauffiq Ahmad Fauzi, 34.
The raid itself was quick and physical. Once inside, the group restrained the occupants with tape and cable ties, then stripped them of phones and valuables. Nobody in the house was in a position to resist a group carrying machetes and bats, and the choice of hour — the small hours of a Thursday morning, deep into a long session — suggests the timing was not accidental.
The haul was the kind that only exists in a very specific setting: physical cash in quantity, watches worth serious money on the wrist rather than in a display case, and a set of car keys to a Ferrari. In a licensed casino, none of those things would be sitting in one room in the hands of eleven people.
The part that makes this a modern robbery
What separates this case from a conventional armed robbery happened after the room was secured. Having taken the victims' phones, the group went through the devices looking for cryptocurrency applications — and transferred assets out of one victim's account.
It also changes the logistics of the getaway. Cash is heavy, traceable at borders and hard to move in volume. A crypto transfer crosses the same border as a phone in a pocket, which is precisely why part of the proceeds was later converted into cash on the other side and divided up.
They knew the game was there
According to the prosecution, the two men behind the plan learned about the poker games through an acquaintance who had previously taken part in them.
That single line is the whole vulnerability of a private game. A recurring high-stakes home game runs on trust and word of mouth — the address is known, the schedule is predictable, and the rough size of the money in play is common knowledge among anyone who has sat at the table. Every new player invited in is another person who knows where several million dollars can be found at two in the morning, and the security around it is a front door.
The sentences — and the cane
All six pleaded guilty to charges including armed gang robbery and the removal of criminal proceeds from Singapore. The sentences handed down range from seven years and eight months to twelve years and eleven months.
Alongside the prison terms, those under the age of 50 were each sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane. Singapore's penal framework attaches caning to serious violent offences, and armed robbery sits squarely in that category; the age threshold is why the two oldest defendants are treated differently from the rest.
The severity is not incidental to the story. Singapore is one of the safest cities in the world by any violent-crime measure, and a multi-million-dollar armed raid on a residential address is genuinely anomalous there. The sentencing reflects a jurisdiction that treats that anomaly as something to be answered decisively.
Follow the money: $1.33 million back, $2.51 million gone
After the robbery, the group left Singapore through separate border crossings and regrouped in Malaysia, discarding the clothing and weapons used in the raid along the way. In Malaysia, part of the stolen cryptocurrency was converted into cash and the proceeds split.
The window in which that could be enjoyed was short. Arrests followed between April and November 2024, and the men were brought back to Singapore for prosecution. But the recovery figures tell their own story: authorities have recovered roughly $1.33 million of the stolen property, while more than $2.51 million remains missing. Goh assisted investigators in recovering approximately $629,000 worth of cryptocurrency — cooperation of the kind that tends to matter at sentencing.
Even with six convictions, a cooperating defendant and a cross-border investigation that ran for months, most of the money is gone. That gap is the practical reality behind every headline about assets being "recovered": arrests are far easier to achieve than restitution once proceeds have been converted, split and moved across a border.
One man still missing
A seventh suspect, 33-year-old Malaysian national Muhammad Yusuf Kassim, remains at large. Court documents indicate he is believed to have left Malaysia for Thailand.
His absence keeps the case formally open, and it is the most likely explanation for a portion of the unrecovered funds. It also underlines how quickly a regional case stops being a two-country problem: a robbery in Singapore, an escape into Malaysia and a suspect thought to be in a third jurisdiction, all inside a matter of months.
Why a private game is the softest target in gambling
Set this against what a regulated casino floor actually is. Entry is controlled and identified, surveillance coverage is comprehensive and continuous, cash is handled at a cage by staff who never leave it unattended, and players carry chips rather than banknotes. The entire physical design exists to make exactly this kind of raid unworkable.
A private game inverts every one of those properties. The money is physical and present, the participants are known to each other and to their acquaintances, there is no security staff, no cameras worth the name, and — critically — the incentive to call the police afterwards is weaker than it would be anywhere else. That last point is why robberies of home games are widely believed to be under-reported across every market that has them.
The wider context in Singapore is an authority that has been unusually active on gambling-adjacent crime. Earlier this summer, a separate and much broader operation saw 60 people arrested over illegal gambling tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup — a reminder that the enforcement energy here is not reserved for the spectacular cases.
Details are as set out in Singaporean court proceedings and public reporting at the time of writing; one suspect remains outside the jurisdiction and the case is not formally closed. The image above is illustrative. Gambling involves risk and isn't for everyone — please play responsibly, set your limits, and if it stops being fun, take a break.
