Delivery rider fined by court for leaving S$1,500 arowana in his car for 4 hours, killing it
He left the fish in a plastic bag in his car for at least four hours after a glitch resulted in the assignment being cancelled.
by Lydia Lam · CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
SINGAPORE: A delivery rider who picked up an arowana worth S$1,500 (US$1,170) from a fish farm for delivery to a customer left it in his car for at least four hours, killing it.
Mohamad Isman Rosli, 26, was fined S$2,000 by a court on Thursday (Mar 5). He pleaded guilty to one count of mischief by leaving the fish in his car for four hours, killing it.
A second count of lying to a police officer that he had returned the fish to the farm was taken into consideration.
The court heard that Isman was a part-time Lalamove delivery rider at the time of the offence in October 2025.
He accepted his first delivery job via the Lalamove application on Oct 7, 2025. He was to pick up an Asian red arowana fish from Fu Long Aquatics and deliver it to a customer.
At around 9pm that day, Isman picked up the fish in a plastic bag from the farm. He knew that he was transporting a live fish.
About 40 minutes later, the delivery assignment was cancelled due to a glitch in the application.
However, Isman did not return the fish to the farm nor deliver it to the customer. Instead, he left it in the plastic bag in his car for at least four hours without proper care.
At around 1am on Oct 8, after completing all his other deliveries, Isman returned to the fish farm but found that it was closed.
He then took the fish home and found that it was dead. He threw the fish away in a rubbish chute and did not inform the farm nor the customer about the incident.
On Oct 8, 2025, a representative of the farm lodged a police report, saying the fish was missing and Isman was uncontactable.
Isman was interviewed by the police a day later. He lied that he had returned the fish to the farm at around 11.45pm on Oct 7, 2025.
As a result, the police expended resources to investigate the matter, analysing police camera footage and recording a further statement from Isman.
Isman confessed to throwing away the dead fish only after he was confronted with police camera footage from his residential block.
He did not make any restitution to the customer.
The prosecution sought a fine of S$2,000 to S$3,000, noting the wrongful loss suffered by the victim and the wastage of investigative resources.
For mischief, he could have been jailed for up to a year, fined, or both.
Sign up for our newsletters
Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app