HE'S JUST a passenger like you, cramped up in economy class, chowing down airline food.
But in his cabin bag, the one he carefully keeps an eye on at all times, are items worth millions.
He is a courier, someone whom high-end insurance companies use to transport anything from priceless art to ancient artefacts - incognito.
Organisers of a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition now on at The Arts House used such a courier to bring the ancient biblical fragments from the US to Singapore.
The Dead Sea Scrolls rank as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
They look like dried-up pieces of leather the size of your thumb, something you might pick off the floor.
But each of the four fragments on display in Singapore is said to be worth up to $500,000.
At the Bible Museum in Arizona, USA, the home of the fragments, the pieces were handed over to an insurance company, which then passed it on to a security company.
The security company appointed a courier, 'some regular, normal-looking guy who doesn't draw attention', said Mr Joel Lampe, curator of the Bible Museum and the Singapore exhibition.
The courier flew on his own. In his cabin baggage, the fragments, smug between plates of glass, rested in the slots of a foam container, much like a CD in a CD case.
A six-digit code, electronic thumbprint and two keys are required to open the container.
One key is held by the courier. The other is shipped to the destination one week in advance and held by the insurance company.
Upon arrival, the courier clears the parcel with customs officers, who would have been notified beforehand, and then passes the parcel back to the insurance company, which then returns it to the owner.
Ocean's Eleven
'It's done pretty much Ocean's Eleven-style,' said Mr Lampe, adding that he did not meet the courier nor knew which flight he was on.
Quiz him on the intriguing details (Does the courier know gongfu? Does he have a code name? How much is he paid?) and Mr Lampe tells you the insurance company doesn't reveal much.
What little he knows he is also reluctant to share for security reasons.
'All I know is that it works,' he said.
Every month, priceless items pass onto Singapore's shores, swiftly and silently, ringing the cash registers of an insurance sector that prefers to fly under the radar.
This is the glamorous cousin of personal and motor insurance, the world of smooth-talkers in charge of putting a price on the playthings of the rich and famous.
Fine art, expensive watches, wine collections, vintage cars - all these have to be insured, along with their million-dollar homes and everything in them.
Ditto artefacts and art pieces which take centrestage at the increasing number of exhibitions Singapore is hosting as part of its bid to become a Renaissance City.
'Singapore wants to become a vibrant city, but people won't send their stuff here unless they got a good insurer first,' said Mr Stephen Blasina, senior vice-president at Chubb Insurance, which deals in fine art insurance.
This is a sector of the insurance industry that sees several billion US dollars' worth in annual premiums globally, but where procedures and clients' names are kept hush-hush.
Mere mortals need not apply.
'Insuring an art piece is not like insuring your car,' said Miss Lee Ju-Ann, Chubb Insurance's regional manager.
'You cannot just get another piece if you lose it. So what value do you put on it? You need to know who to talk to. Maybe an expert in the art community tells you, I've seen something similar and it cost this much...'
The premiums and payouts vary, and so do the clauses in the contracts.
Some insurers, for example, instruct the couriers never to let the parcel out of their sight.
'So this may mean you have to take a $2 million ceramic vase or the Dead Sea Scrolls to the loo,' said Mr Dick Chia, the managing director of Helu-Trans, an art logistics company.
Not all precious goods are transported via courier. Sea freight is an option, but limited to hardy toys like bronze statues.
Many others are sent by air, carefully secured in special cargo holds, away from the heaps of Samsonites.
Diamonds
Items like diamonds are kept in pouches and locked up in the cockpit, under the care of the pilots.
From the airport to the museum (or mansion), the objects, depending on their value, are sometimes transported by armed guard, using trucks not unlike those used to transport money to ATMs.
'Air-ride trucks', which use hydraulic suspension instead of spring suspension, are used if needed.
'It's like transporting the artwork along on a giant mattress,' said Mr Chia.
In Singapore, the insurers don't have to worry as much about security as they do overseas. Still, they're vigilant.
Art thieves are an educated lot, said 30-year-old Charles Liu, who oversees the Singapore operations of AXA Art Insurance, the biggest fine art insurer in the world with one-third of global market share.
'If you want to steal art, you must understand art, then know how to steal it, how to store it, and how to sell it back on the black market,' said Mr Liu.
An art piece has no replica, so thieves can't simply sell it to a gallery. Many stash the loot somewhere for years in the hope that people forget about it.
And when they do, the art is amazingly still in perfect condition.
It's good old police-and-thief, only sleeker.
'Movies like The Italian Job, Ocean's Eleven... they're not that far from the truth,' said Mr Liu.
Why the big deal over old scraps?
AT THE time they were discovered, the oldest-known Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible dated back to about 1000 AD.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed the existing manuscript tradition back more than a thousand years, to between 250 BC and 68 AD.
They verified that the Old Testament was accurately transmitted from antiquity to the mediaeval world.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near the Dead Sea, which straddles Israel and Jordan today.
They consist of roughly 900 documents written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and include every book in the Old Testament except Esther.
FYI
WHAT: Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ancient World
Besides fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 100 other treasures spanning 5,000 years of human civilisation are on display. These include bibles, Mesopotamian clay tablets, manuscripts of ancient writing, pottery and coins.
WHERE: The Arts House
WHEN: Until 20 Sep.
8.30am to 10am (weekdays): For schools
10am to 10pm: For public (last admission 9pm).
TICKETS: $12.50 to $20. To book, call the Arts House Box Office at 63326919.
