Their takings may soon dry up when a new law comes into effect to curb fencing, or the buying and selling of stolen property like drain covers and fire hydrants.

The new Secondhand Goods Dealers Act replaces an existing 89-year-old statute on Dec 1, said police on Thursday.

Commonly stolen items like mobile phones, computers and scrap metal will be listed under the new regulations.

Thefts of metal items like lightning conductors, which create public safety risks, have spiked because of rising prices of metal.

The number of cases rose 20 per cent to 1,014 in the first nine months of this year, compared to 812 in the same period last year. Last year, there were 1,092 cases in total.

To deter metal thieves, dealers can only pay sellers in the form of crossed cheques from Dec 1.

The no-cash rule makes it trickier for thieves to dispose of their loot, as police can trace them via their bank accounts.

While scrap metal dealings will become more inconvenient for the 140 dealers here, the new law will be less harsh on the secondhand goods dealers.

They are not required to register if they do not deal with the listed items.

An estimated 1,000 of the 3,000 dealers here fall under this category.

Under the old rules, all secondhand dealers had to be licensed except those who traded in goods that were expressly excluded from the regulations.

Most of the remaining 2,000 who have to register with the police will not have to pay the licence fee, said the police's director of operations, Assistant Commissioner Wong Hong Kuan.

Only dealers with criminal backgrounds or are the subjects of police probes have to be licensed and pay an annual fee of $150. Their applications can also be rejected.

Registration for dealers starts from Nov 19.

Police will conduct inspections to enforce the law, which carries stiffer penalties. Rogue dealers can be fined up to $20,000, or jailed up to a year, or both. Under the old Act, the maximum penalty was a $1,000 fine and six-month jail term.

The police said that while the requirement 'may pose some inconvenience', it was an 'important tool' to tackle metal thefts, especially of items that endanger public safety.