Shell Pulau Bukom fuel heist: 38-year-old man gets 4 months' jail for accepting bribes to turn a blind eye to theft

SINGAPORE — A 38-year-old man was sentenced to four months’ jail for accepting bribes totalling US$15,000 (S$20,500), as part of a decade-long alleged multi-million marine fuel heist from Shell Eastern Petroleum's Pulau Bukom refinery.

Jasbir Singh Paramjit Singh, who appeared in court on Tuesday (Nov 15), was also ordered to pay a fine of S$20,514 for his offences. 

He pleaded guilty earlier on Nov 4 to one charge under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He, along with 11 other people from the same company, were charged in April with accepting bribes which amounted to at least US$213,000. 

At the time of the incidences, Singh was a surveyor employed by Intertek Testing Services, a company that offered surveying services of the quantity of cargo supplied to vessels in Singapore.

They had allegedly accepted the bribes as “inducement or rewards for refraining from accurately reporting the amount of oil loaded onto vessels which their respective companies were engaged by Shell to inspect”, CPIB said in a press release in April. 

Between 2014 and 2017, they accepted the bribes directly or through intermediaries from three former employees of Shell — Juandi Pungot, Muzaffar Ali Khan Muhamad Akram and Richard Goh — who are said to have been the key planners of the scheme which began in 2007.

Juandi was jailed for 29 years on March 31 while Muzaffar and and Goh's cases are pending. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Around 2013, Juandi and Muzaffar approached Singh to discuss how they could work together in order to sell misappropriated Shell gas oil to vessels docked at Shell Pulau Bukom.

Pulau Bukom is a pair of islands and all fuel products leave the site via underwater pipelines or by vessels. 

Singh agreed to help them. Three of his colleagues — A Duraisamy, Noruliman Bakti and Anand Omprekas — were also roped in to assist with the plan. 

Duraisamy, Noruliman and Anand were sentenced earlier to 10 months, eight months and six months' jail respectively. 

The four of them would turn a blind eye to the theft of gas oil and would also inaccurately report the amount of cargo loaded onto the vessels which Intertek was engaged to inspect.

In return, they would receive a sum of money from Muzaffar and Juandi. 

Between 2014 and 2015, Singh accepted bribes on three occasions from Juandi, which amounted to US$15,000. 

On each occasion, Duraisamy first received the US$15,000 before splitting the sum equally with Noruliman and Singh, such that they would each receive around US$5,000. 

According to court documents, their actions resulted in a misappropriation of Shell gas oil worth US$567,842. 

For accepting a bribe, Singh could have been jailed up to five years or fined up to S$100,000, or both.