Packer sentenced to 20 years and 24 cane strokes for two cannabis traffics
The High Court sentenced Dhanabalan s/o A Gopalkrishnan, 33, on 21 August 2003 to 20 years' imprisonment on each of two trafficking charges and 24 strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to cutting 499.99 g and 749.99 g of cannabis mixture for a friend at Teban Gardens.
Dhanabalan s/o A Gopalkrishnan, aged 33, pleaded guilty to two charges of trafficking in cannabis
after Central Narcotics Bureau officers arrested him at 8.35 p.m. on 24 February 2003 in a flat at
Blk 52 Teban Gardens while he cut and packed cannabis from a larger block.[1]The first charge
concerned 499.99 g of cannabis and the second 749.99 g of cannabis mixture.[1]
Minimum sentence for an assistant
Justice Choo Han Teck noted that Dhanabalan had lost work, accepted $100 per block from his friend
Raman Selvam to pack the drugs, and refused to move the finished packages.[1]The prosecution
accepted that he was not the main trafficker, had no prior drug record, and had helped investigators
against Raman.[1]The minimum penalty for each charge was 20 years’ imprisonment and 15 strokes
of the cane; the judge imposed those terms concurrently but limited the total caning to 24 strokes
under the Criminal Procedure Code.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The judgment records 15 strokes of the cane for each charge but caps the total at 24 strokes under section 230 of the Criminal Procedure Code; it does not say how the strokes were apportioned.
Dhanabalan cooperated against his friend Raman Selvam, but the opened judgment gives no sentence or outcome for Raman.
The court treated him as an assistant who refused to transport the packed blocks; the sources name no other co-accused at the flat.
Singapore permanent resident Anton Andrievsky, 28, was sentenced on 16 September 2026 to 27 months' jail after a parcel from Britain with at least 136 g of cannabis was intercepted at SingPost Centre in September 2025; CNB officers forced entry to his Toa Payoh flat when he refused to open the door.
State Courts sentenced Alger Aw Wei Jun, 25, on 26 May 2026 to 16 years and 10 months' jail and 12 strokes of the cane after he collected at least 459.2 g of cannabis for a friend and was arrested in a Central Narcotics Bureau raid; he also admitted meth possession and use.
Charged 1Cannabis 459.2 gPrison 16 years 10 months
Singapore's High Court sentenced Khalid bin K K Mohamad to death on two trafficking charges, one for 624.5 g of cannabis found in his Telok Blangah flat. The court rejected his claim that the drugs were for his own use.
Arrested 1Charged 1Cannabis 624.5 gPrison death sentence on each of two charges
Tan Xianglong was jailed for three years and ten months on 29 August 2024 for possessing at least 216 g of cannabis he had planted in his estranged wife's car in October 2023, hoping the 500 g-plus load would draw the death penalty and speed his divorce.
Arrested 2Cannabis 216.17 gPrison 3 years 10 months
