Oil theft: 2 months in prison for the inspector at the time, who accepted 7.9 thousand dollars in bribes

SINGAPORE – An inspector accepted around S$6,000 ($7,900) in bribes from a colleague in exchange for turning a blind eye to unauthorized loading of Shell diesel onto marine vessels.

Mauritian national Naushad Carrim Tengur’s offense was linked to the theft of $128 million worth of oil from Shell Eastern Petroleum’s Pulau Bukom site.

On November 1, the 48-year-old Singaporean permanent resident was sentenced to two months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of more than $4,000.

District Judge Chee Min Ping convicted him of the graft after a trial in October.

At the time of the offence, Naushad was working for a firm called Inspectorate (Singapore) which examined sea vessels to find out the volume of cargo loaded in their tanks.

In 2022, it was one of 12 people who were charged in court with corruption-related offences in relation to a conspiracy to misappropriate oil from the Shell Pulau Bukom site.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau said in a statement on April 14 that year: “Between 2014 and 2017, the 12 individuals allegedly accepted bribes totaling at least $213,000.

“These bribes were either paid to them directly or through intermediaries by three former Shell employees, namely Juandi Pungot, Muzaffar Ali Khan Muhamad Akram and Richard Goh Chee Keong.”

Juandi, then 45, admitted in February 2022 to embezzling 203,403 tons of diesel worth $128 million. He he received 29 years in prison in March 2022.

Muzaffar, then 42 years old, he was sentenced to 26 and a half years in prison in August 2024. The case involving Goh, 55, is pending.

For Naushad’s case, the court heard that he accepted the US$6,000 for two incidents between 2016 and 2017 from Muhammad Khairul Asri Mohamed Hanafiah, who was also an inspector at the Inspectorate at the time.

Deputy public prosecutors Norman Yew and Jeremy Bin said in court documents that Khairul, 40, pleaded guilty in May 2022 before being sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to pay more than $8,000 in fines .

The DPPs added that the inspectors’ duties include inspecting tanks on marine vessels docked at Shell’s Pulau Bukom site.

They had to accurately report the volume of diesel in the ships’ tanks before and after Shell loaded the fuel into them – the volume of which was determined by Shell’s contracts with its customers.

The DPP told the court: “The purpose of the inspections and reporting was to ensure that there was no unauthorized loading of excess oil from Shell to these vessels.”