In 1990, amendment to the Customs (Prohibition and Restriction on Imports and Exports) Order added “Alcoholic Liquor” into the list of Prohibited items. Henceforth, Brunei officially went dry. Thus arose bootlegging as a lucrative activity for locals to make big bucks, really really big bucks. Demand was high and urgent. Smuggling in the supplies from Limbang was easy.

Tiong was one of the locals who couldn’t resist the temptation for the big bucks and dived right into it. By mid-1990s, Tiong established quite a significant client base, who had his number on their speed dial. He operated out of his home in Kg Sumbiling Lama. Business was good. Demand remained high coming in from left and right. These were not just from tourists and foreign visitors but also and largely from locals, non-muslims and muslims alike, who couldn’t let go of their favorite pastime. Yep, including bobbies too.

In the lucrative contraband business, the profits of getting away with it certainly outweighed the penalties if they get caught. So, Tiong was unfazed when he was, in March 1996, caught for having large quantities of contraband alcoholic liquor in his possession where he just had to pay a fine. In August 1996, Tiong was caught again, this time he was fined and sentenced to a one month imprisonment. Still no biggie. Intoxicated (no pun intended) by the big money and the lots of “friends” he was making, Tiong continued his bootlegging operation even after he got jailed.

What Tiong failed to catch on, however, was that once you sank deep in the underbelly of the illegal trade world, you are everyone’s best friend until you are not. Rub them the wrong way, the Al Capones of contraband trafficking from across the border could hunt and “terminate” any local alcohol peddlers within a snap of a finger. Peddlers who had been caught like Tiong could easily turn from being their clients’ best friend to be seen as a liability for knowing too much.

On 07 January 2001, around 0930PM, two men driving along the stretch of dark, desolate road towards Tungku beach came upon a Suzuki Vitara sitting on the road with the headlights on but no driver at sight. They stopped to inspect and found that the car was left unlocked and the engine running. From the corner of their eyes, despite the darkness, they could see faint smoke from the bush a few meters away. There laid Tiong’s burned body. He was murdered. 

Police and pathologists immediately congregated at the scene, but as promising as it might look and sound, we all know how it is here, where grave crime cases start and end with – “Police is still investigating…”