SINGAPORE – It was just another routine day for police coast guard Mohd Ramdzan Yahya when he conducted checks on a vessel that had drifted into Singapore waters.

Little did he expect that his five-minute interaction with a couple of Malaysian anglers would go viral on social media, earning him widespread recognition, praise for his professionalism and the nickname Abang Polis.

On Nov 15, station inspector (SI) Mohd Ramdzan, 47, and two of his colleagues spotted a motorised wooden boat while they were doing their patrols north-east of Pulau Tekong at 2pm.

They immediately realised that the vessel was in Singapore’s territorial waters.

As their high-speed patrol craft approached the smaller boat, SI Mohd Ramdzan noticed that the two men, whom he could tell were recreational fishermen, looked nervous.

“I cracked some jokes to put them at ease and, at the same time, I asked for their identification for us to conduct checks,” he told The Straits Times on Dec 3, adding that the men were cooperative.

“I also told them I understood they might have accidentally entered Singapore waters and they would need to return to Malaysian waters.”

However, he did not realise that the interaction was being recorded by one of the anglers and then posted on TikTok.

In the video posted on Nov 18, the TikTok user with the handle @Fizreeajie said he and his friend were having a meal and did not realise the strong winds had caused their boat to drift away from their original spot.

SI Mohd Ramdzan says on the two-minute video: “If you entered accidentally, we won’t make things difficult. Some boats run on purpose, that’s different. Even if you didn’t do anything, we still have to conduct our checks.”

The atmosphere turns friendly when SI Mohd Ramdzan cracks a joke about whether the men had the “green light” from their wives to go fishing, adding that his wife would be upset if he...