- Two former employees from Shell Eastern Petroleum were sentenced to jail terms.
- The cases of several other Shell employees, including the alleged masterminds, are pending.
- More than 300,000 tons of gas oil worth at least S$200 million were siphoned.
- The police began investigating when a Shell representative filed a report in August 2017.
Two former Shell employees sentenced to jail terms over the largest heist of marine gas oil in Singapore to date, reports TodayOnline.
Heist of MGO in Singapore
Two former employees from Shell Eastern Petroleum were sentenced to jail terms on Monday (July 5) over the largest heist of marine gas oil in Singapore to date, amounting to hundreds and millions of dollars.
Dozen employees prosecuted
The misappropriation of gas oil by two syndicates of Shell employees at its biggest regional refinery, on Pulau Bukom, led to the prosecution of about a dozen employees and foreign ship captains.
Gas worth S$200m siphoned
More than 300,000 tons of gas oil worth at least S$200 million were siphoned. Gas oil is a type of fuel used on ships and other vessels.
About the offence and the sentence
Prosecutors said the offences struck “at the core of a strategic industry” and that the “sheer scale of the offending in this case is without precedent”.
- Acap sentenced nine-and-a-half years’ jail
Muhammad Ashraf Hamzah, a 39-year-old Singaporean also known as Acap, was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years’ jail on Monday.
Purchase with criminal proceeds
The ex-process technician pleaded guilty to nine criminal breach of trust charges, as well as one charge of using nearly S$200,000 of his criminal proceeds to buy a Volvo V40 car.
He participated in the scheme from around 2010 to 2016, aiding in the misappropriation of USS$24 million (about S$33.5 million) of gas oil from 2014 to 2016. He earned at least S$700,000 for himself.
2. Fieldman sentenced six years and eight months jail
Sadagopan Premnath, an Indian national who worked as a fieldman or panel operator at Shell, was jailed for six years and eight months.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal breach of trust, with another five charges taken into consideration for sentencing.
Sadagopan was involved in the scheme between 2017 and 2018, aiding in the misappropriation of US$36 million (about S$49.1 million) worth of gas oil. He received about US$150,000 from the criminal proceeds.
Both men, who were the first Shell employees to be dealt with by the courts, have not made restitution to their former employer.
How did it go undetected?
They had followed instructions to open and close valves so that ships could receive the stolen gas oil without being detected.
Prosecutors said that two other Shell employees allegedly started the scheme in 2007 — Juandi Pungot, a shore loading officer from Sadagopan’s team, and Abdul Latif Ibrahim. They then recruited others over the following years.
Shell’s 2017 fuel loss complaint
The police began investigating when a Shell representative filed a report in August 2017, saying that the firm had suffered a loss of fuel worth about S$2.98 million in April that year.
At least two others — Vietnamese ship captain Doan Xuan Than and another ship officer, Dang Van Hanh — have been jailed for receiving between S$3.5 million and S$7.7 million of gas oil.
Working of the scheme
Key participants recruited
Shortly after cooking up the plan in 2007, Juandi and Latif recruited another key participant, shore loading officer Muzaffar Ali Khan.
Shore loading officers would usually be the ones in contact with a ship captain for the sale and purchase of misappropriated gas oil.
Surveyors bribed
Juandi and Muzaffar were handed more charges in February this year of bribing employees from various surveying companies with US$91,900, to stop them from reporting the accurate amount of gas oil loaded onto vessels.
Various methods to get away
The syndicate got away with their alleged crimes for about a decade through various methods, such as timing their thefts with the legitimate loading of gas oil and tampering with the orientation of closed-circuit television cameras.
How did they communicate?
They coordinated their activities through chat groups on mobile phones, even though they were not allowed to use their phones while on duty.
Why did the operation took a pause?
In 2013, Juandi, Muzaffar, Ashraf and a fourth employee discovered that Latif was holding on to about half of their criminal profits before splitting the remainder with them. This led to a dispute.
Latif was the primary point of contact with bunker ships willing to participate in the scheme. The operations then took a pause when he left to join another team in Shell.
However, the syndicate resumed its activities in 2014 after finding other willing vessels with Vietnamese and Greek captains, and recruited other employees into the ruse.
Impact on Shell
In early 2015, Shell began observing significant unidentified gas oil loss at Pulau Bukom.
A 2015 review did not turn up anything suspicious. Shell then implemented various measures to improve processes but the misappropriation continued.
Third-party review
In early 2017, it engaged a third-party consultant to conduct a review, but the investigation did not yield a conclusive explanation for the high losses.
Highest hydrocarbon loss
It soon experienced its highest hydrocarbon loss since 2015. Shell then hired a global team of analysts, who detected the misappropriation, and a police report was made.
Incurred about S$6m in costs
Shell had since taken various measures to improve its systems and processes, including developing a monitoring software to detect potential thefts.
So far, Shell has incurred about S$6 million in costs to manage the consequences of the misappropriation.
For each charge of criminal breach of trust as an employee, each man could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.
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Source: TodayOnline
