Y
Yuan Shao
Guest
Aug 25, 2010
Jailed for forgery
<!-- by line --> By Khushwant Singh
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<!-- end left side bar --> <!-- story content : start --> HER job at Raffles Hospital was to extend the visas of patients who needed to stay in the country longer for treatment. But marketing assistant Charenjit Kaur forged doctors' memos to make it look like 11 Bangladeshi women were also receiving treatment at the hospital, when they were actually not.
With these memos, applications to extend their visas were almost guaranteed. These 11 women, aged from 24 to 32, were working as prostitutes here and looking for a way to stay longer. They were here mostly on one-month social visit passes and in some instances got a two-month visa extension, thanks to Kaur.
On Wednesday, Kaur was jailed 7 1/2 months. A district court heard that the 39-year-old Singaporean had committed six counts of forgery and 13 offences of providing false information to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA). Another Bangladeshi, she helped was 43-year-old Md Sattar, but the court was not told how why he needed to extend his stay.
Kaur received between $100 and $200 for each successful extension. She joined the hospital as a marketing assistant in 2005. Part of her job was to source patients from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and to develop local and foreign associates to attract more foreigners as part of a medical tourism campaign.
One of her associates, Shamin Sheik, 35, a construction worker, is believed to have to sent her genuine patients at first. Kaur would arrange the appointments with the doctors and the treatments were mostly related to female medical problems such as ovarian cysts and various cancers. Later, Shamin got her to extend the stays of Bangladeshi visitors, who were not patients. Kaur was arrested after a prostitute was arrested and spilled the beans.
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