Operations manager took bribes, cashed company cheques to spend on lottery tickets, jackpot machines

SINGAPORE — When a contact asked Mohamed Ali Mohamed Yusoff to help him secure transportation jobs, Ali asked for “commissions” for every job he awarded to the man’s firm.

For more than two years, Ali, an operations manager at Aldino Freight and Trading, ended up taking S$14,244 in bribes from Sharul Hisham Seran, also an operations manager at a logistics firm.

Ali also personally cashed company cheques totalling S$69,905, instead of using them to pay contractors.

Most of the money he took went towards buying 4D lottery tickets, gambling at jackpot machines, repaying loans, and buying cigarettes and food.

On Thursday (June 6), the 59-year-old was jailed a year and ordered to pay a penalty amounting to the bribes he received.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal breach of trust, as well as one charge of obtaining gratification to advance the business interests of Sharul’s company, Rich Growth Logistics.

The court heard that Ali was in charge of the overall operations at Aldino, because its main company director was frequently out of the country.

Aldino provides freight-forwarding and transportation services, mainly to Indonesian companies. It handles the collection of cargo from Changi Airport, and its transportation to Aldino’s warehouse — a process known as cargo clearance.

As part of his job, Ali sourced for quotations from contractors in Singapore and paid those who were eventually engaged by Aldino.

Sometime in 2015, Ali was tasked to find an external contractor to provide transportation services for Aldino’s cargo clearance.

In July that year, Ali met Sharul to discuss prices for Rich Growth’s services. The pair knew each other before, as Sharul had worked for another freight-forwarding company that had business with Aldino.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Cheng Yuxi told the court that Ali asked Sharul to mark up his rates.

“(Ali) added that in order for Rich Growth to obtain all the transportation jobs from Aldino, Sharul had to ‘cover’ (him), which meant that Sharul was to give (him) commissions for every job awarded to Rich Growth.”

The next month, Rich Growth began doing transportation jobs for Aldino.

At first, Sharul paid Ali the bribes in cash. Later, he issued company cheques in Ali’s name.

Between Aug 22, 2015 and Oct 17, 2017, Ali received bribes ranging from S$26 to S$534 on 55 occasions.

In exchange, he awarded about S$65,000 worth of jobs to Rich Growth.

Separately, Ali was entrusted with company cheques that the firm’s accountant had pre-signed. He was meant to use the cheques to pay contractors after receiving invoices from them.

However, on 40 occasions between Aug 24, 2016 and March 9, 2017, he issued cheques to himself and deposited them in his personal bank account.

DPP Cheng said that Ali later “substantially” repaid the amounts to the contractors.

In mitigation, Ali said that he made a “big mistake” and did not know what came over him. He added that he is still working at Aldino, where he has been employed for 15 years.

For obtaining gratification, he could have been jailed up to five years and fined up to S$100,000.

For criminal breach of trust, he could have been jailed up to seven years and fined.