An 18-year-old French student living in Singapore has been charged with mischief and causing a public nuisance after filming himself licking a straw from an orange juice vending machine and placing it back into the dispenser. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien posted the video to his Instagram Story in March, captioning it "city is not safe." The footage quickly spread across local community pages and news outlets, drawing widespread public disgust.
The incident occurred on 12 March at a shopping centre in Singapore. iJooz, the company that owns the vending machine, filed a police report and said it was forced to replace all 500 straws in the machine's dispenser as a precautionary sanitation measure. The company also conducted inspections at the affected machine. Prosecutors argue that Maximilien's actions could have caused "unjust loss and damage" to iJooz.
Maximilien is currently enrolled at the Singapore branch of ESSEC Business School, a French institution. His lawyers confirmed that his parents had travelled to Singapore following the charges, and that a school representative would act as his bailor. ESSEC said it was aware of the incident and that internal investigations were under way. His case is next scheduled to be heard in court on 22 May.
If convicted on both charges, Maximilien faces a maximum combined jail sentence of more than two years as well as substantial fines. The mischief charge alone carries a potential two-year prison term. The case has drawn attention to Singapore's well-known reputation for strict enforcement of public order laws. The city-state, a densely populated island nation in Southeast Asia, imposes heavy fines for littering and maintains a ban on chewing gum — rules that reflect a broader legal culture where acts considered antisocial are treated as serious offences rather than minor infractions.
The severity of the potential punishment underscores how acts that might be dismissed as juvenile pranks elsewhere can carry significant legal consequences in Singapore, a reminder to residents and international students alike that local laws apply regardless of nationality.