Hours after the pictures of the four suspects who are wanted for harassing debtors were splashed in newspapers and shown on television on Tuesday, one of them turned himself in.

Ong Kah Soon, 17, surrendered himself at a police station and has been charged in court today.

Ong is accused of splashing iodine on a unit at the HDB block together with another man to cause annoyance to the victim on Dec 17 last year.

Ong, who has highlighted hair, and his accomplice are said to have been acting on behalf of an illegal moneylender.

Police released pictures of the four, who were captured on security cameras placed at a flat in Bedok Reservoir Road and another in Toa Payoh Lorong 1, to the media to appeal for the public for information. The men, in their 20s, are wanted in connection with police investigations into three loan shark harassment cases in the last two months.

The prosecution applied for Ong to be remanded for a week for further investigation. His case will be mentioned on on Jan 22.

If convicted, a first offender faces a fine of between $4,000 and $40,000 or three years' jail, or both plus not more than four strokes of the cane.

The number of people charged in court with loan shark harassment doubled from 227 in 2005 to 577 in 2006, following the setting up of an Anti-unlicensed Moneylenders task force three years ago.

In the first nine months of last year, 277 were arrested for loan shark related activities - just 17 less than the total number of arrests for 2006.