Vice, Vice paradise
PUBLISHED ONMarch 30, 2014 10:30 PMByZul OthmanZaihan Mohamed Yusof
THE 'PROMOTERS'
They haggle over price in front of camera
It did not bother them that the backlane was brightly-lit.
They also didn't mind that a surveillance camera was pointed in their direction from about 10m away.
With brazen disregard, the 10 streetwalkers, dressed in tank tops and hot pants, or tight dresses to accentuate their figures, went about their trade.
Near them were three foreign men whose job was to promote their range of sexual services.
We encountered the group as we used the backlane as a shortcut from Lorong 16 to Lorong 14 on Wednesday night.
A Bangladeshi blocked our path and while pointing to a woman in denim hot pants and a lace-trimmed tank top, said: "Brother, come see first lah, see first."
The woman looked in our direction and smiled shyly.
"They are very beautiful. These Indonesian girls give good service," the man added.
I asked: "How much?"
He flashed three fingers and said $30 for a quick session before describing the various sex acts the girls could perform.
Oddly, the women did not sound Indonesian when they muttered a few English phrases to us.
We told their "promoter", who said: "Oh yes, sorry, they're from Thailand."
As we haggled over the price, two other men took up positions at the entrance to the backlane.
A man straddling an electric bicycle was focusing on approaching vehicles at Lorong 16.
Unlike working girls who congregate along Geylang Lorong 12, Jalan Suka and Talma Road, these women kept their hands to themselves.
We soon understood why. A chubby local man sitting on a black sofa about 3m away was irked by our indecision. He looked and sounded like he was the pimp.
He shouted to his foreign assistants in halting English: "Hoi, tell them if not interested, get lost! I can give two for $50. If still don't want, go away."
'THE PHARMACIST'
Empty bottles mark the spot
The telltale signs were obvious nearby - empty 90ml medicine bottles lying in drains along Lorong 9 Geylang.
These small bottles used to contain codeine, a cough mixture that is abused by drug addicts.
Lorong 9, famous for its delicious beef kway teow and frog porridge, is also where addicts go for their codeine fix.
It is illegal to sell cough medicine that contains codeine, an ingredient governed by the Medicines Act and Poisons Act, without a licence.
Under the Poisons Act, any unlicensed person caught importing, selling or possessing codeine for sale can be fined up to $10,000 and jailed up to two years.
When consumed in large amounts, codeine can cause dizzy spells, constipation and even death. But addicts are willing to risk death to get their high.
In 2010, The New Paper exposed dealers who were selling a 90ml bottle of codeine for $8 to addicts.
And it seems the problem has persisted in the area.
On Wednesday night, several empty plastic bottles that used to contain codeine could be seen among discarded cigarette butts and dried leaves.
We could not spot any codeine sellers, but a man at a nearby coffee shop was packing white pills into individual plastic cases.
As we walked past, the man, who was in his 20s, looked startled and tried to shield the pills from our view.
We also spotted illegal sex enhancement pills on sale at one of the lanes.
THE 'PEDDLER'
Business brisk as lookouts keep watch
The foreign men scanned the traffic along Lorong 10 Geylang.
Whenever a passing motorcyclist flicked his bike's headlights, it was a signal that they had a customer for their contraband cigarettes, which are sold in packets or cartons.
These transactions near the entrance of a backlane at Lorong 10 happened quickly. In less than a minute, the bikers or passers-by were off with their purchases.
What made this group of cigarette peddlers visible was the constant flow of "drive-through" customers.
Business was brisk, with a new customer appearing every 10 minutes or so.
Their stash of contraband cigarettes was hidden inside a black trash bag behind two large rubbish bins. Each pack of cigarettes costs $5.50.
It became obvious that the nervous-looking peddlers kept a ring of lookouts.
Two men standing a few metres away scanned the nearby road for potential trouble. Another two men watched over the group from the second storey of the nearest shophouse.
We observed three men handling the transactions stop customers from entering the backlane and use hand gestures to shoo them away quickly.
"What do you want?" one of the sellers, who spoke with a foreign accent, asked us as we passed by the "store".
We stopped for a second to take a look before walking away.
The seller looked slightly annoyed, then turned away to deal with a new batch of customers.
THE 'GAMBLERS'
Only regulars let in
The illegal gambling tables are gone but this does not mean that gambling is a thing of the past in Geylang.
Crowds milling around gambling tables and loud cheers used to feature in the notorious backlanes that once stretched from Lorong 14 to Lorong 18.
A liquor salesman familiar with the goings-on in the area told us that constant police action put a stop to the outdoor gambling activities. But it did not stop the illegal gambling, which now takes place in gambling dens in shophouses in Geylang.
"Just because the backlanes are quiet doesn't mean that there is no gambling," said the salesman, who added that the new gambling dens will let in only regulars.
"If you're new, you have to be introduced by a familiar face or you will not be allowed entry no matter how much money you flash in front of them."
Ten years ago, it was not uncommon to see gambling tables operating even in broad daylight.
But one shop owner at Lorong 14, who declined to be named, said that the police put up cameras in the back alleys after repeated complaints about illegal gambling.
"Now the area is bright and quiet. The only thing you see are the pimps parading their girls," he said.
The police have conducted raids on the illegal gambling dens. Last July, they arrested seven people and seized about $490 from a shophouse on Geylang Road.
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