Wah kakis, come sit down, take a big sip of your kopi, and prepare your brain. You think your life boring during public holidays? You think doing OT in office until 9 PM is torture? Wait till you hear the story of this super bo liao guy who took “itchy fingers” to a whole new international, sovereign-level of absurdity.

Meet 37-year-old Singaporean Foo Jia Hong. One fine day, Jia Hong decided to upgrade his mobile accessory game and bought a second-hand handphone cover. Now, most people expect maybe some dust or a leftover screen wipe inside. But Jia Hong hit the unexpected jackpot: tucked neatly inside the casing was a random, active foreign SIM card left behind by the previous owner.

Now, let’s stop and think. If normal, sensible Singaporeans like you and me find a random foreign SIM card, what do we do?

1. Throw it straight into the blue recycling bin.
2. Leave it on the MRT seat for someone else to deal with.
3. Pretend we never saw it because we watch too much Crime Watch.

But Jia Hong is not normal. He looked at that tiny piece of plastic, felt a sudden, inexplicable spark of “creative genius,” and decided to use it to play a massive, 8-day game of Ghost Call with the Singapore Police Force (SPF).

The Great 1,035 Call Marathon

Over a span of just 8 days, this bro went on an absolute, unfiltered dialing rampage. He sat there finger-tapping away, ringing up various neighbourhood police centres across the island a mind-boggling 1,035 times.

Out of all the hard-working police stations in Singapore, Yishun Neighbourhood Police Centre hit the ultimate mega jackpot—receiving a staggering 425 calls all by itself!

(Honestly, why is it always Yishun?! Even stray foreign SIM cards also know how to automatically auto-route and target Yishun, alamak!)

The setup for every single call was identical:

• Step 1: Dial the emergency/station line.
• Step 2: Wait for the poor duty officer on shift to pick up the phone and say, “Hello, Police Centre, how can I help you?” expecting a real emergency, a robbery in progress, or an auntie losing her cat.
• Step 3: Activate full-stealth, zero-volume silent mode.
• Step 4: Say absolute ZERO words. Not a peep. Not even heavy breathing. Just heavy, awkward, air-conditioned silence.

Imagine being the poor mata on night duty, picking up the ringing phone over 400 times in a week, only to be met with the sound of your own existential dread.

How SPF Caught The “Ghost Caller” Fast-Fast

Jia Hong probably thought using an unregistered foreign SIM card made him look like a local James Bond—completely untraceable, hiding in the digital shadows like an elite secret agent.

Tapi wait long long lah! Did he forget this is Singapore, the land of high-tech forensics and wall-to-wall CCTV? Using a foreign SIM card only hides your billing identity; it doesn’t hide your physical phone hardware from the network! Here is how the police tracked him down:

• Hardware Identity (IMEI vs. IMSI): Every single handphone has a unique hardware serial number called an IMEI. Even if the foreign SIM card had no Singaporean name attached to it, his actual physical phone was broadcasting its IMEI code to local telco towers every single time he pressed “Call”.
• Cell Tower Triangulation: By tracking which mobile cell towers received those 1,035 calls, SPF engineers could pinpoint his physical location down to his exact neighbourhood block in real-time.
• Digital Paper Trail: Combine that tower data with local network logs (and a quick cross-reference of surrounding CCTVs), and his secret agent cover was instantly blown.

The moment he pressed dial, he left a massive, glowing digital paper trail pointing straight to his own bedroom!

“Your Honour, It Was For Fun & Enjoyment!”

Obviously, the Singapore Police Force doesn’t just sit around taking prank calls forever. They activated their tech, located him, showed up at his door, and hauled his itchy-fingered self straight to court.

When the judge sat on the bench, looked at the charge sheet, and naturally asked him: “Bro, why on earth did you go and waste police resources over 1,000 times?!”

Jia Hong didn’t blame stress. He didn’t blame sleepwalking. He stood there with full, unbothered confidence and basically admitted to the court that he did it purely for “fun and enjoyment.”

Wah lau eh! Fun and enjoyment?! If you are bored, go play Mobile Legends lah! Go jog 10 rounds around Bishan Park lah! Go count how many tiles are on your HDB void deck floor!

Because of his bored-till-cannot-take-it prank, a total of 19 police leaders and senior officers had their actual operational duties completely cockblocked. Instead of investigating real crimes, coordinating patrols, or protecting the public, 19 commanders were busy managing telephone chaos caused by one guy sitting at home playing silent game.

The Final Verdict: 23 Days of Total Silent Treatment

The court wasted no time and handed him a 23-day jail sentence for obstructing public servants from carrying out their duties.

The ultimate, poetic irony of this whole saga? Jia Hong spent 8 full days giving our hardworking police officers 1,035 rounds of silent treatment. Now, the state is giving him 23 whole days of complete, uninterrupted silent treatment inside Changi Prison—no smartphone, no foreign SIM card, no wifi, and definitely zero “fun and enjoyment.”

Moral of the story, kakis: Next time you buy second-hand phone accessories and find something extra inside, just throw it into the bin. Don’t go and geh kiang (act smart) thinking you can outsmart SPF cyber-forensics, unless you also feel like applying for a 23-day all-inclusive staycation with free warden wake-up calls!