A Judge at the State Courts of Singapore on Monday (5 July) sentenced two former staff of Shell Eastern Petroleum to jail over their respective involvement in the theft of marine gas oil (MGO) from the Shell Bukom terminal, according to local media.
Singaporean Muhammad Ashraf Hamzah was sentenced to nine and a half years’ jail, while Indian national Sadagopan Premnath received a six years and eight-month imprisonment term.
Muhammad Ashraf, a former process technician at Shell, pleaded guilty to nine criminal breach of trust charges, in addition to a single charge of using nearly S$200,000 of his criminal proceeds to purchase a car.
He gained at least SGD 700,000 from his participation in the scheme.
Sadagopan Premnath, was a fieldman or panel operator at Shell and was involved in the scheme between 2017 and 2018. He was the first to plead guilty over his involvement and received about USD 150,000 from criminal proceeds.
Court proceedings against other allegedly involved parties, including former employees of Shell Pulau Bukom, are ongoing.
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Photo credit: Manifold Times
Published: 6 July, 2021
Emmanouil (Manos) Katsipis has than 20 years of experience in oil trading and business development.
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Glencore purchased fuel through Straits Pinnacle which contracted supply from Unicious Energy. Contaminated HSFO was loaded at Khor Fakkan port and shipped to a FSU in Tanjong Pelepas, Malaysia to be further blended.
Individuals were employees of surveying companies engaged by Shell to inspect the volume of oil loaded onto the vessels which Shell supplied oil to; they allegedly accepted bribes totalling at least USD 213,000.
MPA preliminary investigations revealed that the affected marine fuel was supplied by Glencore Singapore Pte Ltd who later sold part of the same cargo to PetroChina International (Singapore) Pte Ltd.
