Ex-mining boss jailed 2 days, fined $140,000 for graft and forgery
Published on Jun 1, 2012
A former managing director of a mining firm was jailed two days and fined a total of $140,000 on Friday for accepting a bribe of US$340,000 (S$437,916.76) and abetting an employee to falsify invoices from a supplier. Willy Teo See Khiang (above), 59, committed the offences between 1999 and 2009 when he was managing Phosphate Resources. -- ST
PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
By Khushwant Singh
A former managing director of a mining firm was jailed two days and fined a total of $140,000 on Friday for accepting a bribe of US$340,000 (S$437,916.76) and abetting an employee to falsify invoices from a supplier. Willy Teo See Khiang, 59, committed the offences between 1999 and 2009 when he was managing Phosphate Resources.
District Judge Soh Tze Bian imposed the minimum of one-day jail for the bribery offence and one-day jail each for five of the falsification charges proceeded with. Only two of the jail sentences were ordered to run consecutively. Teo was also fined $90,000 for graft and $10,000 each for the five falsification charges. The remaining 122 charges were taken into consideration by the court in sentencing.
Teo could be jailed up to five years and fined up to $100,000 for corruption and jailed up to seven years and fined up to $10,000 for the abetment offences but the court exercised judicial mercy. Medical reports produced by defence counsel Chen Chee Yen indicate that Teo was suffering from major depression and imprisonment would worsen his condition. Prison authorities also told the court that they did not have the facilities to take care of his ailments.
He had pleaded guilty in February to accepting the bribe from Tan Tuck Soo, 64, then a director of Assets Shipowners and Managers, some time before July 1999. In return, Teo ensured that Phosphate chartered vessels from Tan's firm and related companies. Between 1999 and 2009, Teo abetted Jason Tan Tay Ming, a shipping logistics manager at his firm to alter 127 invoices billed to the company for sums ranging from US$4,000 to US$24,000 for the purpose of cheating his firm of US$1.6 million.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
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