Imagine fleeing your country to avoid national service, only to return hundreds of times under fake identities like some kind of budget Jason Bourne with a driver's license. That's the bizarre reality of Low Eng Kheng, a Singaporean whose decades long dance with immigration authorities reads like a cautionary tale about the perils of skipping leg day, or in this case, national service day.

For five years, from 2006 to 2011, Low used not one, not two, but four fake Malaysian passports to cross into Singapore a staggering 876 times. That's more reentries than a toddler at a bounce house. His reason? Visiting his ailing mother, which almost makes you sympathize until you remember he could have just served his time like everyone else. Instead, he turned border crossings into a part time job, paying a shadowy figure RM45,000 for the first passport and RM10,000 for each subsequent one, proving that fraudulence doesn't come cheap.

Low's legal team argued he wasn't using the fake passports for nefarious purposes, just driving people around to support his family. Because nothing says upstanding citizen like meticulously maintaining multiple identities for half a decade. The irony is that Low's scheme collapsed not because of a dramatic chase scene or a betrayed accomplice, but because of the quiet, unstoppable rise of biometric technology. By 2020, Singapore had rolled out iris and facial scanners at all checkpoints, turning Low's once bulletproof plan into a game of Whack a Mole he was destined to lose.

This story isn't just about one man's refusal to serve. It's a snapshot of how technology is closing the gaps human ingenuity once exploited. Low's 876 crossings would be unthinkable today, not because people are more honest, but because machines are less forgiving. It also highlights the lengths people will go to for family, even if those lengths involve illegal passports and a lifetime of looking over your shoulder.

The real kicker? Low's mother passed away in 2011, the same year he made his final border crossing. One wonders if all that subterfuge was worth it, or if he might have been better off just serving his time and visiting openly. Either way, his story ends not with a bang, but with an eight month prison sentence and the cold comfort of knowing he was finally, definitively, caught.