3 reasons to watch Inside Woodlands Checkpoint, at world’s busiest land crossing

SINGAPORE: They had gone through immigration at Woodlands Checkpoint, and nothing seemed amiss as the four travellers started walking along the pavement on the Causeway, towards Johor.
But when the men crossed over to the other side where the railway track was, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the checkpoint received an alert immediately.
“If these travellers are able to enter Malaysia illegally, there’s every chance … of them (later) entering Singapore illegally as well,” said ICA officer Mohd Syamil Mohd Yusof, who was on duty when the incident happened on Aug 18.
Officers quickly mobilised, splitting into two teams: one searching nearer the border with Malaysia and another closer to the checkpoint. Meanwhile, one of Syamil’s colleagues conducted a sweep of the water pipelines to ensure nobody was hiding between the pipes.
The Police Coast Guard was also deployed to scour the waters. But there was no sign of the quartet, last seen on closed-circuit television near the tracks.
“I’m quite frustrated because we came here as fast as we could,” said Syamil at the scene. The ICA had already logged the men’s details, however, ready to question them if they attempt to re-enter Singapore.
Such situations are all in a day’s work for the officers at Woodlands Checkpoint, who man the world’s busiest land crossing, with more than 300,000 travellers passing through daily.
The pressure intensifies during long weekends. “A lot more travellers mean that they could be targets for armed attackers,” said Syamil. “So we project a lot more presence and pay a lot more attention to the crowd.”
He is part of the First Response Team — officers who are trained to react a range of incidents, from overcrowding to medical emergencies to security threats such as potential assailants.
At peak periods, some travellers are also tempted to smuggle contraband, working on the assumption that travel chaos will provide cover for illicit activities, with officers too overwhelmed to notice.
That is where search and examination officers come in, inspecting cargo, luggage and vehicles to intercept prohibited items.
“People always have this expectation that it’s always the departure side that’ll experience heavy traffic,” said one of the officers, Illy Erica Mohd Johaness. “But here at arrival cargo, it doesn’t mean that we’re relaxed.”
CNA’s two-part series, Inside Woodlands Checkpoint, follows ICA officers in their behind-the-scenes efforts to apprehend suspected lawbreakers, uncover contraband goods and keep up with the flow of people passing through the border.
WATCH PART 1: World’s busiest land crossing — Inside Singapore Woodlands Checkpoint (46:08)
One of the cases has even ended up in court now. Here are three reasons to watch this exclusive access to immigration control.
Amidst all the traffic at Woodlands Checkpoint, thousands of lorries come in every day. All of them are scanned — and every radiographic image must be cleared in 10 seconds to keep traffic moving, said ICA image analyst Darren Oh.
Within that time, on one occasion when he was screening a lorry carrying packet drinks, he noticed something unusual: An area towards the front of the vehicle appeared lighter on the scan.
He knew from experience that a whole consignment of liquids should appear dark. “I’m quite confident that this is a smuggling case,” he said, calling for the lorry to undergo enhanced checks. “It’s going to be a big case.”
Indeed, it turned out to be one of the ICA’s largest hauls, according to search and examination officer Mohd Masri Mohd Rahman. Eventually, about 3,250 cartons of contraband cigarettes were extracted from the vehicle.
While the cartons were in different packaging from the declared consignment, the officers could not rule out the possibility of other hidden contraband.
So they had to escort the lorry to a secure area for a thorough inspection, with officers in the operations room locking down the zone to prevent the driver from taking off in the vehicle while under escort.
Any lockdown affects other vehicles as traffic is brought to a standstill, which “makes us want to get this lockdown and escorting done as quickly as possible”, said Erica.
Considering the weight of the boxes of drinks, the extraction was challenging and required additional manpower. “But at the same time, I feel it’s fulfilling because we managed to extract so much contraband,” Erica added.
Combating smuggling is not the only reason for a lockdown at the checkpoint. A full lockdown — affecting travellers, vehicles and any form of conveyance — can be triggered by a dash-through or any attempt to evade immigration clearance.
In fact, on the eve of NationaI Day, the panic alarm was activated.
Upon reviewing the CCTV footage, Luqman Hakim Shaifoddin, the watch team leader, discovered that a lorry driver had driven through the barrier before it was raised.
“Once we’ve established the area that the panic alarm was activated for, we can … lift the lockdown in other areas of the checkpoint just to alleviate the traffic,” said Luqman.
WATCH PART 2: World’s busiest land crossing — Inside Singapore Woodlands Checkpoint (45:38)
The party concerned, however, will be detained until officers can determine whether there was any malicious intent, particularly to avoid clearance. In the case of this driver, officers established that his action was unintentional.
Traffic build-up can also arise from a breakdown on the Causeway. Even something as simple as passengers being too absorbed in their phones to notice it is their turn to verify their identity at the counter can cause delays.
Inside the immigration hall, congestion often stems from buses not picking up travellers heading to Malaysia fast enough. After the drop-off point, bus drivers must make a U-turn into the departure side but could be delayed in a jam.
First Response Team officers sometimes must implement a “controlled release” strategy, whereby they restrict the number of travellers entering the bus hall when it is already at capacity. “We don’t want … problems such as a stampede,” Syamil said.
The intensity of peak periods aside, officers may be faced with other kinds of tense situations.
In August, a driver made the headlines when he was charged with taking photos of an ICA officer at Woodlands Checkpoint, then posting the officer’s name and rank on Facebook.
The initial exchange at the checkpoint, along with the moment the traveller was detained as a wanted subject when he tried to pass through immigration control later that month, are featured in the second episode of the series.
After he used his phone to arrange for a friend to collect his car, things escalated as he continued using the device in the holding room — a breach of the rules, and he had been reminded of this.
When told to stop, he became increasingly agitated, coming nearer one of the officers and calling him “stupid”.
“Interacting with frustrated travellers is quite normal,” said the officer, Muhd Haziq Hazli. “(But) the distance between him and me … wasn’t that far.
But the officers have been trained not to give in to emotions, and the man calmed down subsequently.
Some travellers, however, act discreetly for other purposes. There was one, for example, who was suspected of using a fake passport.
Protective Security Team leader Jocelyn Lim, whose main role involves conducting secondary interviews and thorough checks, pressed him on the origins of his passport and the purpose of his visit.
Her questioning revealed many contradictions, which confirmed her suspicions. The man was denied entry into Singapore.
Watch the series Inside Woodlands Checkpoint here: Part 1 and Part 2.