Tan Chor Jin
Tan Chor Jin, also known by his alias Tony Kia, was a Singaporean gang leader known for fatally shooting 41-year-old Lim Hock Soon, his former friend and nightclub owner, using a semi-automatic Beretta.22 calibre pistol on 15 February 2006. Tan, who had underworld affiliations and was a member of Ang Soon Tong since his early years, had also robbed the Lim family of their valuables before he escaped Singapore to Malaysia, where he was arrested ten days later. The media gave him the name "One-eyed Dragon" given that he was blind in the right eye.
Subsequently, Tan was charged with the execution-style murder of Lim, though the charge was later amended to one of an unlawful discharge of a firearm with intent to cause hurt or death in Singapore. Both charges were known to warrant the mandatory death sentence if found guilty, yet Tan chose to represent himself in his defence during the court proceedings, which failed and led to Tan being sentenced to death as a result of a lack of evidence in his favour. After losing his appeals, Tan was hanged on 9 January 2009. His two accomplices, who played a part in assisting Tan to commit the crime and to escape Singapore, were each sentenced to six and twenty months' imprisonment in 2006 and 2016 respectively.
Early life
Tan Chor Jin, the youngest of seven children, was born on 29 March 1966. Tan's parents were originally from Guangdong, China before they immigrated to Singapore in the 1950s, and they worked as food stall owners to make ends meet.Tan, who had two sisters and four brothers, grew up living in a three-room flat at Kim Keat. He was very close to his siblings and filial to his parents. His father and mother died of old age in 1997 and 1998 respectively.
Tan spoke little English, but he could understand Chinese and a bit of Malay.
Adult years and criminal career
As he grew into adulthood, Tan Chor Jin joined the Ang Soon Tong gang, which existed since the 1950s and had a vast criminal network in trafficking drugs and arms, and both illegal money lending and gambling. Tan had also engaged in such activities, and during his time in the gang, Tan rose through the ranks and became a feared triad leader of the underworld. He also engaged into a career as an illegal bookie who collect horse-racing and football bets at a coffee shop in Balestier Road.Sometime in the 1980s, Tan was jailed for five years in Changi Prison for gang-related activities, including rioting and fighting. A former inmate from the prison reported that during his time of imprisonment, Tan was well-behaved and spent most of his time studying. He also liked to play Chinese chess during his free time, even when he was not in prison.
Aside from his gangland connections, Tan began to open a shop that sold traditional Chinese medicine in Malaysia. He later expanded the business into a branch of four shops, and also expanded into the trade of Chinese religious products and penchants. He became affluent enough to own branded cars. Despite his gangster affiliations, Tan never talked about them in his home and never brought his friends to his siblings’ homes. Even when he smoked, he did not do so in front of his family members and only did it near the window out of respect for them. According to one of Tan's older brothers, he said that Tan was close to his three children, and they fondly looked up to him as an uncle they liked.
Tan was married in 2001 to Siau Fang Fang, a Malaysian who was born in 1981. Even though he moved to Hougang after his marriage, he lived with his wife and in-laws in Malaysia, where he operated his business. He had no children with Siau. Tan would later on have a mistress named Lian Yee Hwa, who was the same age as his wife. Together, he and Lian had two children, a daughter and a son.
In 1999, Tan had a traffic accident. Although he survived it, Tan suffered an eye injury due to the broken glass pieces having flown into his right eye during the crash, which pierced through and thus blinded him in the right eye.
Murder of Lim Hock Soon
Robbery and murder
Early on the morning of 15 February 2006, at a HDB block in Serangoon, a family living in one of the block's second-floor units was robbed of their valuables, with the patriarch of the family being shot dead.In that same morning, the police were contacted and they arrived at the scene. They entered the flat of the family, and found a dead body riddled with five gunshot wounds in one of the rooms. The victim was recognised as Lim Hock Soon, a 41-year-old owner of a famous nightclub in Singapore. Lim's family was also earlier robbed of their valuables. The police also found a total of six used cartridges on the floor of the study, along with a chair that was damaged by one of the spent bullets. The wounds were found on Lim's left arm, right temple, right cheek, back and, left thigh.
According to Lim's 33-year-old Malaysian wife Kok Pooi Leng, Lim's 13-year-old daughter, and Lim's 22-year-old Indonesian maid Risa Erawati Ning Tyas, all three of them testified that they were being threatened by a Chinese man wearing black clothes and black cap, who was holding a gun and a knife. The complete sequence of events started at 55 minutes past six o’clock when Lim's daughter, the first and only child of Lim and his wife, was preparing to go to school. She saw the man appearing at her doorstep, telling her to go inside as he wanted to rob them. Risa, who often would bring her employer's daughter to school, was also held at gun point by the man.
After locking the door, the gunman forced the maid and daughter into the living room. Lim, who was sleeping on a mattress inside the living room, was rudely awakened by the gunman, who pointed the gun at him and told him and the others to go into the master bedroom, where Lim's wife was also awakened from her sleep. Having forced all four into the master bedroom, the robber forced Lim's wife to surrender their valuables and place them in his bag. Then, the gunman told Lim to tie up his family with towels.
Afterwards, the Lim family and maid was taken into Lim's study at gunpoint, and from his safe, Lim additionally gave the gunman more of his cash and possessions. In total, the gunman received $170,000 in cash and property, including assorted jewellery, four Rolex watches and foreign currencies. After this, the gunman remained in the flat, ordering Lim's wife to use the TV cable wire to tie Lim's hands. As Lim pleaded with the gunman to not hurt his maid and family, the gunman told them to go into different rooms. The maid went into Lim's daughter's bedroom and Lim's wife and daughter were forced into the master bedroom, while both Lim and the gunman stayed in the study.
The family later told police that, after they went into the rooms. They heard gunshots coming from Lim's study, and they all realised that Lim was killed. Additionally, Risa, the family maid, spoke to the police that prior to her employer's death, she peeked outside the bedroom and saw both Lim and the gunman, who seem to know each other, engaging in a heated row, but she could not make out what they were talking about. Risa said that the mysterious man in black suddenly used his left hand to point the gun at Lim's face and fired at close range. Lim cried out in pain and collapsed. Risa said that at the sight of Lim being shot, she quickly moved back and covered her ears, in which she heard more shots but could not make out how many times the gunman fired his gun. However, the common description the family gave of the gunman was, the man had one abnormal eye.
Before he left, the one-eyed murderer went to the room where Lim's wife and daughter were confined in, outrightly stating that Lim deserved to die, as he had gone too far and it was his fault, over whatever personal issues he had with Lim. He also threatened Lim's wife to not report him or he will come back to kill her and her family.
Identification of the gunman
According to the man's description, and having asked questions to Lim's acquaintances about the mysterious one-eyed man, the police identified the suspected one-eyed killer as Tan Chor Jin, who was an old acquaintance of Lim. According to one of Lim's close acquaintances, he told police that Tan, also known as Tony Kia to secret society members, had borrowed some $30,000 from Lim, who was known as "Guni Ter" or Milk Pig in the underworld due to his obesity. Tan had never returned the money to Lim, resulting in Lim taking the friend to come with him to Malaysia in 2003 to confront Tan and asked him to return the money. Tan was said to have asked for more time to raise the sum, and he was never heard from again until the day before Lim's death, where he approached Lim at around 3 am, as he wanted to borrow more money. Lim's friend informed the police that Lim was said to be fearful as Tan knew where he lived despite the fact that he never gave Tan his address.The police then began to place Tan's name on the wanted list and asked the public through the media to inform the police if they had any information about Tan and his whereabouts. Having found out that Tan had left Singapore through the Woodlands Checkpoint, they also asked the Malaysian police for help to capture Tan, who went into hiding in Malaysia.
Ah Chwee's account
Soon after they launched a manhunt for Tan, the police received news that a 38-year-old man named Lim Choon Chwee, better known as Ah Chwee, surrendered himself. When he was brought back for questioning in the CID, Ah Chwee admitted that he knew Tan and the one-eyed killer's plan to rob Lim, but he said he was not aware that Tan would kill Lim Hock Soon.In his statements, Ah Chwee, who was Tan's childhood friend and fellow gang member from Ang Soon Tong, said that when he received word from a friend that Tan was in Singapore and Tan was looking for him. Ah Chwee then met up with Tan in the friend's flat and on Tan's request, he drove him to Lim's place of residence in Serangoon in the early hours of 15 February 2006, hours before Lim met his end in Tan's hands. Ah Chwee said he noticed that Tan brought along a black bag but he did not know that it contained a gun, knife and some spare ammunition.
Ah Chwee said that ten minutes after they reached Serangoon, Tan, who alighted the car as soon as they parked the car, returned and as they left, Tan asked Ah Chwee where he could steal a Rolex watch. Ah Chwee said that he was puzzled about Tan's question and asked him why. Tan then confided in him that he was facing a lot of financial troubles and quite down in his luck. They went back to Ah Chwee's friend's house to watch a football match for two hours before Tan asked him to drive him back to Lim's neighbourhood again.
After they reached Serangoon, Ah Chwee remained in the car as Tan went into the block to look for Lim, this time armed and ready to rob the nightclub owner. This time, the wait lasted for 30 minutes, and Tan returned, with a white plastic bag full of the money and valuables he stole from Lim and seemingly flustered. Ah Chwee recounted that Tan asked him to drive to the canal nearby the house of Ah Chwee's friend. Tan was said to have gone there to do something. Afterwards, they went back to the friend's house, and contacted a Malaysian named Ho Yueh Keong, alias Moh Tang, who subsequently went out of Malaysia together with Tan. Ho had earlier on helped drive Tan into Singapore on the day before Lim Hock Soon's murder and reportedly knew in January 2006 that Tan had planned to murder Lim.
With the crucial information from Ah Chwee, the police were directed to search the waters in the canal. The search yielded a semi-automatic Beretta.22-calibre pistol, and some unused ammunition. Ah Chwee was subsequently placed under arrest and charged with abetting Tan to commit murder. Ho Yueh Keong, the alleged accomplice who helped Tan escape Singapore, also had his name placed on the wanted list.