Men crash car along Beach Road -- after allegedly stealing it from Strathmore Avenue carpark

What appeared to be a car accident at Beach Road early Saturday morning (Mar 4) turned out to be even more complex when the offending vehicle was found to have been stolen just an hour prior.

According to Lianhe Wanbao, three men had stolen the Toyota car from a multi-storey carpark at Strathmore Avenue. After driving for around eight kilometres, they were involved in an accident with another car at about 1am.

Instead of stopping, they drove off towards Sultan Gate, along Beach Road, only to find out that Sultan Gate was a dead-end road. Unable to drive any further, the three men then abandoned the stolen car and made their escape on foot.

Two of the men were later apprehended at Strathmore Avenue, while the third was arrested at Pasir Ris.

A 36-year-old resident living along Sultan Gate told Lianhe Wanbao that he received a call from a neighbour saying that there were police and crime scene investigators outside his house, surrounding a Toyota car.

“I heard there were scratches and dents on the car, and the atmosphere was very tense,” the resident told Lianhe Wanbao. “But when we went to ask around, nobody knew what exactly had happened.”

Lianhe Wanbao reported that the police were able to identify the suspects via CCTV footage at the Strathmore Avenue carpark where the stolen car had originally been parked. A motorist participating in the neighbourhood Vehicle-on-Watch project, whose car had been parked at the same carpark, also provided in-car camera footage of the theft to the police.

The owner of the stolen car is believed to have dropped her car key in the carpark by accident, as the men did not appear to have forced their way into the car.

When she returned to the carpark at about midnight on Saturday, she was shocked to find that her car had gone missing, and immediately filed a police report.

The suspects, two of whom have records with the Institute of Mental Health, have been arrested. Two of them, a pair of brothers, are understood to reside near Strathmore Avenue.