28 weeks' jail for ship captain who stole gas oil from company then fled to Indonesia for 6 years

SINGAPORE — Out of fear that he would be caught by the police for stealing marine gas oil from his company, a ship captain steered his ship out of Singapore’s territorial waters and fled to Indonesia, where he stayed for six years. 

Hanny Cornelesz, 52, was sentenced on Tuesday (Nov 29) to 28 weeks’ jail after pleading guilty to one charge of criminal breach of trust and one charge of illegal departure from Singapore. One other charge was taken into consideration during sentencing. 

At the time of the offences in 2016, Cornelesz, an Indonesian, was employed by Eng Hup Shipping, a marine services provider, as a master on board a Singapore-registered tugboat named “Eng Hup Vigil”. 

As the master of the ship, Cornelesz was responsible for overseeing all operations on the vessel, including those related to the marine gas oil stored onboard. 

The marine gas oil belonged to Santarli Constructions, which had chartered the ship from Eng Hup Shipping in February 2016 for a project. 

Sometime before February 2016, Cornelesz came up with a plan to siphon the gas oil from the ship’s daily usage tank and sell it for money. 

The other employees on board — Randi Oliver Bawole, 37, Jackman Wally Ansa, 47, Wisnu Saputro, 31 and Mochtar Ponto, 38 — were in support of the arrangement. 

To siphon the gas, one of the crew members would switch on a pump to transfer some of the newly received gas from one manhole in the ship’s engine room to another. 

On Feb 1 in 2016, sometime after 1.30am, the crew decided to steer the ship away from their worksite because they wanted to find a buyer for the gas oil they had previously siphoned. 

When the ship was out at sea, the crew noticed an unknown vessel loitering in the area. 

Cornelesz then asked the crew members on that vessel if they would be interested in buying the gas and they agreed. 

Both vessels were then tied together and hoses were passed from the vessel to their ship in order to transfer the gas oil. 

However, their actions were discovered an hour later by a fellow employee of Eng Hup Shipping who was on board another ship. 

The employee, an operations executive of Eng Hup Shipping, had taken another vessel out to sea to search for Cornelesz's ship after noticing that it was not berthed at its designated area. 

Afraid of being caught by the police, Cornelesz ordered his crew to stop what they were doing and began steering the ship to the outer port limits of the country and eventually out of Singapore’s territorial waters towards Batam, Indonesia. 

They arrived at the Batu Ampar habour in Batam at around 4am.

There, Cornelesz ordered crew member Ponto to remain on the ship and inform Eng Hup Shipping that the ship was in Indonesia.

Cornelesz and the rest of the crew then abandoned the ship, with Cornelesz fleeing to Jakarta. 

Ponto did as he was told and returned to Singapore on Feb 2, 2016, after assisting the company to help retrieve the ship. 

Ponto was sentenced to six weeks’ jail after pleading guilty on Sept 29, 2016. The other accomplices remain at large. 

Cornelesz was arrested six years later after he returned to Singapore to attend a one-day shipping course on Sept 26 this year. 

Addressing the court through an Indonesian interpreter, Cornelesz pleaded for leniency, saying he was the sole breadwinner of his family.

District Judge Soh Tze Bian responded: “As a sole breadwinner, you should have known not to commit a crime… Now that you have to go to jail, your family will suffer.” 

For criminal breach of trust involving property, he could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined. 

Under the Immigration Act, anyone who illegally leaves Singapore or abets the offence faces at least six months’ and up to two years’ jail and may also be fined up to S$6,000.