Former S’pore Customs officer jailed for GST fraud
SINGAPORE — A former Singapore Customs officer has been sentenced to five years’ jail and ordered to pay a penalty of over S$670,000 for his role in a fraud case involving Goods and Services Tax (GST) refunds, which prosecutors declared the most elaborate GST fraud case seen since the introduction of the GST electronic tourist refund (eTRS) scheme.
The sum, totalling S$673,084.80, comprises an S$11,400 penalty for corruption offences and a S$661,684.80 penalty, or three times the amount of GST defrauded.
Mohamed Yusof Abdul Rahman, 67, pleaded guilty to seven corruption charges.
Another 26 charges were taken into consideration.
He also pleaded guilty to 25 charges relating to GST tax evasion, and 78 similar charges were taken into consideration.
The offences were committed between January 2013 and January last year. Investigations revealed that Yusof helped approve fraudulent GST refund claims of four Indian nationals amounting to S$493,858.67.
The claims were approved even though the items presented — which were jewellery — did not match the description on the receipts. In return, Yusuf received bribes totalling S$11,400 in cash.
The prosecution called this the “most elaborate, sophisticated and pre-meditated GST fraud case” since the introduction of the GST electronic tourist refund scheme in August 2012.
The four Indian nationals who bribed Yusof were last year sentenced to jail terms of between three and four years and ordered to pay penalties amounting to three times the tax defrauded.
Sundar Panneer Selvam, 46, Baskaran Uthirapathy, 28, Pounraj Natarajan, 25, and Gobi Raman, 31, were caught after the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore found their tourist refund claims fishy.
Their modus operandi was to buy receipts from bona fide shoppers to get eTRS tickets from jewellery retailers.
They would then present cheap jewellery that fell short of the value of the refund claim at the airport counter.
The case of another accomplice, 50-year-old Lim Pheck Aun, has not been dealt with yet. At the time of the offences, the sales executive at Soon Huat Goldsmith is believed to have accepted bribes, in return for generating eTRS tickets to those who were not the actual buyers of the jewellery. ALICE CHIA
