'I won't be bad anymore'

FATAL END: Police looking at Ng's body after he was gunned down. Pic: ARIF KARTONO

SERDANG: "I promise I won't be bad anymore," Ng Meng Kee, 34, told his mother when he was charged with stealing luxury cars.

That promise was made last December. One that he broke in less than two  months. On Sunday evening, Ng was killed in a shootout with police at Taman Perindustrian USJ1, near the Giant hypermarket.

Police sources said Ng, who carried a handgun and sometimes a machete or axe as well, was the leader of a  seven-man luxury car theft gang.

"According to our information, Ng was an expert at picking locks and could pick even the most difficult ones in seconds. The most he would take to get into a house was one minute," said a source.

The source said Ng's gang, which was widely known in crime circles, depended on him to open the doors of houses they targeted at night.

The modus operandi of the group, said the source, was to break into houses, steal the car keys and drive off in them — usually BMW and Mercedes Benz models.

"If the owners were to wake up and confront them, they would not hesitate to use force, tie them up or even harm them."

The gang stole more than 10 luxury cars around Kuala Lumpur and Selangor in recent months and was also believed to be involved in more than five such thefts in Malacca and Pahang.

Police records show that the gang had been active for some three years.

The sources said Ng was arrested on Nov 13 and was charged with stealing luxury cars the following month. About 4pm on Sunday, his short-lived life of crime came to an abrupt end.

Police spotted him and at Berjaya Times Square earlier in the day. He took off in a Mercedes Benz stolen from a goldsmith's son-in-law and got to USJ, after ramming into three police vehicles along the way.

About two hours later, Ng was cornered in Taman Perindustrian USJ1, near the Giant hypermarket, and was gunned down when he tried to open fire at police.

A preliminary post-mortem report from the Serdang Hospital showed three bullets had pierced Ng's body, one in the head.

Speaking to reporters at the Serdang Hospital yesterday, Ng's mother, in her 50s, said her son started mixing with "the wrong people" after his father passed away 10 years ago.

"He began coming home late all the time," the sobbing mother said. She really believed Ng would change the last time he promised her that he would, but her heart broke when she received news of his death at 1am yesterday.

Armed car theft gang crippled

KUALA LUMPUR: Police have crippled an armed gang of car thieves with the arrest of five members in several raids conducted in the Klang Valley recently.

A police source said first arrest was that of a 29-year-old who was caught driving a Mitsubishi Lancer with tampered number plates during a random check near Plaza Damas in Sri Hartamas on Jan 13.

The car was reported to have been stolen in Puchong. In follow-up operations, four other suspects aged between 19 and 28 years were picked up at different locations in the Klang Valley.

Police also seized several parangs and a toy gun from a house in Puchong Perdana and from two cars, a Proton Iswara Aeroback and an Iswara Sedan, which were also believed to have been stolen.