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Shell Pulau Bukom fuel heist: 12 surveyors charged with taking S$300,000 in bribes

Shell Pulau Bukom fuel heist: 12 surveyors charged with taking S$300,000 in bribes

File photo of a tanker vessel docked at Pulau Bukom off Singapore. (Photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman)

SINGAPORE: Twelve surveyors were charged on Thursday (Apr 14) for their part in a S$128 million marine fuel heist at Shell's Pulau Bukom refinery.

The scheme ran for about 10 years and involved a group of Shell employees arranging illegal loadings of marine fuel for vessels at below market rates.

The 12 men were employees of external surveying companies engaged by Shell to inspect the volume of fuel loaded onto vessels, according to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.

They are accused of accepting about S$300,000 in bribes as a reward for not accurately reporting the amount of fuel loaded on the vessels they inspected.

The surveyors allegedly received the bribes from former Shell employees Juandi Pungot, Muzaffar Ali Khan Muhamad Akram and Richard Goh Chee Keong.

Juandi, identified as a key mastermind of the heist, was jailed 29 years last month. Muzaffar and Goh's cases are pending.

The High Court justice who heard Juandi's case described the heist as "exceptionally serious" and "unprecedented in scale and complexity", and said it affected Singapore's reputation as a commercial hub.

The scheme came to light in August 2017, when Shell made a police report over an unidentified loss of fuel amounting to about S$3 million in April that year.

Apart from paying off the surveyors, the syndicate employed sophisticated techniques such as configuring the flow of the stolen fuel and timing it against legitimate fuel transfers.

The 12 surveyors who have been charged and the amount of bribes they are accused of accepting are as follows:

  • Muhammad Ali Muhammad Nor, 55, who faces two charges of accepting US$90,000 and spending about S$39,000 of the money on a BMW car
  • A Duraisamy, 60, who faces three charges of accepting US$31,000
  • Noruliman Bakti, 40, who faces two charges of accepting US$25,000
  • Anand Omprekas, 39, who faces two charges of accepting S$20,000
  • Jasbir Singh Paramjit Singh, 37, who faces one charge of accepting US$15,000
  • Kumunan Rethana Kumaran, 40, who faces one charge of accepting US$12,000
  • Erwin Suhardi Jamaluddin, 38, who faces two charges of accepting US$10,000
  • Rizal Zulkeflee, 38, who faces one charge of accepting US$10,000
  • Naushad Carrim Tengur, 45, who faces one charge of accepting US$6,000
  • Muhammad Khairul Asri Mohamad Hanafiah, 38, who faces one charge of accepting US$6,000
  • Lee Been Lian, 57, who faces one charge of accepting US$5,000
  • Paramanandham Srinivasan, 39, who faces one charge of accepting US$3,000

Their employers are listed as Intertek Testing Services, Inspectorate Singapore, CCIC Singapore and SGS Testing & Control Services Singapore.

Four of the accused have indicated that they will plead guilty, court records show. They are Anand Omprekas, Noruliman Bakti, Erwin Suhardi Jamaluddin and Muhammad Khairul Asri Mohamad Hanafiah.

The penalty for corruption is jail for up to five years, a fine of up to S$100,000 or both.

Source: CNA/yb

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