Shell station armed robbery: 48-year-old man charged

SINGAPORE: A 48-year-old man was charged on Wednesday (Aug 2) for robbing a Shell petrol station at knifepoint in broad daylight.

Visvanathan Vaduvelu, a Singaporean, allegedly took off with S$1,193 in cash from the petrol station at 219 Upper Bukit Timah Road on Monday, after threatening an employee with a kitchen knife and ordering her to place money from the cash register in a plastic bag.

He has been charged with committing armed robbery.

The police were alerted to the incident at around 12.50pm after the suspect fled the petrol station on a scooter. He was tailed by a customer of the petrol station for a short distance, before the customer also called the police.

Even though the suspect was wearing a motorcycle helmet during the robbery, the Shell employee who was robbed – a 22-year-old woman – remembered the colour of his clothes.

Vaduvelu was arrested on the same day of the robbery at about 4.50pm along Jurong East Street 21.

About S$500 in cash, some bank receipts and a scooter were seized by the police. These, along with his outfit – a black T-shirt, a pair of long black pants, a beige jacket, a motorcycle helmet and a pair of sunglasses – were also collected as evidence.

If found guilty, Vaduvelu faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and at least 12 strokes of caning.

He was remanded without bail, and his next hearing will be held next Tuesday.

This was the first of two armed robberies in Singapore in as many days. On Tuesday, another armed robbery took place at a Western Union branch in Ubi.