W
Wei Yan
Guest
Four jailed for dealing with fake chips at casino
Posted: 10 May 2011 2138 hrs
SINGAPORE : Four Indian nationals were on Tuesday jailed for dealing with fake chips at the Marina Bay Sands casino on December 29 last year.
The men, all from Mumbai, had dealt with 39 counterfeit 1,000-dollar chips in all.
Three of the men will spend 42 months behind bars.
They are 24-year-old Vishal Sopan Gurav, a builder with a construction company, 24-year-old Kunal Balan Shettiyar, a technical support staff with an IT firm, as well as 28-year-old Maqsud Ibrahim, a salesman.
They each pleaded guilty to eight of 33 charges.
District Judge Wong Peck sentenced the fourth man, 33-year-old Soheel Ahmad Jamil Ahmad, to 39 months' jail, after he pleaded guilty to six of 33 charges.
Based on court documents, the men had worked with one Asfaq Usman, who is still at large after jumping bail.
Asfaq, a 25-year-old Indian national, who works in his family's hotel business, was out on a bail of S$60,000 after he was charged with the offence earlier this year.
It is believed that Asfaq was engaged in India by a man known as "Ijaz", who handed him the counterfeit chips.
Ijaz allegedly instructed him to visit the Marina Bay Sands casino and exchange them with genuine ones in smaller denominations.
The court heard that these would then be exchanged for cash.
Asfaq was also told that he would be given about S$1,000 after completing the job.
Ijaz also gave Asfaz S$1,500 cash and five sets of airplane tickets to Singapore.
Court documents stated that Asfaq recruited the four men in Mumbai who were each promised a sum of about S$550 for being part of the scam.
All five arrived in Singapore on December 29 last year and carried out their plan in the casino that very same day.
But their crime came to light after three innocent casino guests were caught later that evening trying to encash the counterfeit casino chips which they had unwittingly obtained while gambling.
Following an investigation, all five men were arrested at Changi Airport Terminal 2 on December 31 last year, just before they were about to leave Singapore for Mumbai.
In mitigation, defence counsel S K Kumar asked for a lighter sentence, saying that his four clients were merely following directions from Asfaq.
But DPP Lu pressed for a deterrent sentence, saying that the men were part of a syndicate that was "reasonably sophisticated".
Judge Wong said that she agreed with the prosecution, before sending the men to prison.
They could have been jailed up to seven years and fined a maximum of S$150,000 for each charge.
- CNA/ms
