| In January 2005, an investigation was conducted against the management and staff of Citiraya Industries Ltd (Citiraya) and staff of client companies of Citiraya for a scam involving the diversion of rejected microprocessor chips (sent to Citiraya) into black markets outside Singapore, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Investigation revealed the systematic and calculated means employed by Citiraya's ex-CEO, Ng Teck Lee, and his brother Ng Teck Boon (who was Citiraya's Assistant General Manager) to bribe staff from its client companies as described below. | |
| Johnny Seow, the Senior Planner Inventory Control, and his assistant, Chan Kwok Pew, were offered large amounts of bribes by Ng Teck Lee and Ng Teck Boon, the CEO and AGM of Citiraya respectively. In return for the $10,000 to $30,000 weekly bribes, Johnny Seow had instructed Chan to refrain from crushing the rejected chips totally so that Citiraya is able to resell them in the black market overseas. Between December 2003 and December 2004, Johnny Seow received a total of $1.735 million from the Ng brothers and Chan received a total of $33,000. Both Johnny and Chan were charged in court for corruption under Section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Cap 241, and were sentenced to 3 years and 3 months' imprisonment and 7 months' imprisonment respectively. The bribe monies that were still with them were forfeited in the form of penalties. | |
Wong Chin Farn (Wong), a Sales Executive at ST Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd (ST Micro), was also bribed to ensure the chips delivered to Citiraya remained uncrushed. To do so, he instructed his staff to crush large chips first in order to wear down the machine. Once the crushing machine broke down, Wong would then use that as an excuse to send the remaining chips in an uncrushed state to Citiraya. Wong was given $6 per kilogram of uncrushed chips. Between September 2004 and December 2004, Wong received a total of $30,060 from the Ng brothers. Wong was subsequently charged in court and sentenced to 1 year and 1 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay a penalty equivalent to the bribe amount.
For his roles in the above scams and other cases, Ng Teck Boon was charged and convicted in court on 84 counts of corruption offences under Section 6(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Cap 241 and other Penal Code offences. He pleaded guilty to 6 of the charges (the rest of the charges were taken into consideration in sentencing) and was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment. Ng Teck Lee, the CEO of Citiraya, is now a wanted fugitive. | |
| Lo Keng Foo, the Director in charge of the Failure Analysis & Reliability Engineering (QRA) Section of Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (CSM) was found to have received gratifications totalling $1,228,743 from two of CSM's suppliers. Lo, who was responsible for acquiring new testing technology to ensure CSM's products are of certain industry standards, had accepted these bribes over a period of 4 years. In return for these bribes, Lo had exercised his influence to ensure that the two suppliers were awarded contracts worth millions of dollars. Lo was charged and sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment and ordered to pay a penalty of $1,228,743. | |
Singleton Marc Alexandra, the ex-Managing Director of Performance Motors Limited, was found to have accepted designer watches and handphone worth $150,538.93 given to him by the Managing Director of Teo Tian Seng Motor Credit Pte Ltd (TTS), an authorised BMW dealer appointed by Performance Motors Limited. The Managing Director had given the watches with the intention of inducing Singleton Marc Alexandra to continue awarding TTS the dealership for BMW cars. In addition, Singleton Marc Alexandra also asked for a bribe of $78,000 from the said dealer. In 2005, Singleton Marc Alexendra was charged in court for 14 counts of corruptly obtaining the above gratifications from Teo Tian Seng Motor Credit Pte Ltd and, after a protracted court trial, he was convicted and fined a sum of $185,000.
Another senior management staff of Performance Motors Limited, its Director of Sales & Marketing, Patrick Pow Kwok Yun, was also charged in court for corruptly receiving gratification in the form of gifts totaling $5,553/- and a loan of $60,000/- from Teo Tian Seng Motor Credit Pte Ltd (TTS). Patrick Pow was also found to have obtained loans totalling $82,000/- from Performance Motor's appointed sole finance agent, Skyway Credit & Leasing Pte Ltd (Skyway). Patrick Pow was charged in court for 8 counts of corruption offences under Section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Cap 241. He was convicted and fined $120,000, in addition to being ordered to pay a penalty of $142,000. | |
| Lai Kwong Meng, COO of Centrepoint Properties Pte Ltd was found to have received bribes amounting to $330,000 from two contractors in 1998 and 1999. In return, Lai had awarded contracts to the contractors for air-conditioning work and mechanical ventilation installation work for building projects he was involved in. Lai Kwong Meng was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay a penalty of $320,000. | | |