Indian jailed in S'pore for duping employer into paying over Rs 31 cr
Darpan News Desk IANS, 26 May, 2023 11:22 AM
ingapore, May 26 (IANS) An Indian national has been sentenced in Singapore to 30 months in prison for duping his employer into making payments totalling over SG$5.1 million (Rs 31 crore) to other companies linked to him, a media report said.
Hussain Naina Mohamed, a 47-year-old assistant shipping manager at a construction firm, pleaded guilty on Thursday to nine counts of cheating involving more than SG$$2.5 million and one count of moving a portion of his ill-gotten gains out of Singapore, The Straits Times reported.
During the sentencing, 16 other charges, including those involving the remaining amount, were also considered.
Hussian told investigators that he had sent the money to India to help cover his parents' household expenses.
The payments took place between 2009 and 2019, causing at least SG$500,000 in losses to Utracon Corporation where Hussain worked until January 2019.
Hussain, whose responsibilities included making vendor recommendations to his superiors, also did not inform his employer that he was a partner at a company called Al Rahman Enterprises & Trading (Aret).
Instead, he recommended Aret as well as his father's firm to be his employer's vendor for marine insurance, freight-forwarding services, and plastic components.
The prosecution told the court that Utracon would not have awarded jobs to these firms had it known about the conflict of interest.
The companies recommended by Hussain did provide services to Utracon as its vendors, which resulted in a financial loss of at least SG$500,000 to Utracon as a result of the cheating.
Hussain admitted in the court that he had set up the firm solely to earn some cash from Utracon, and due to his dishonesty, Utracon ended up paying SG$705,000 to Aret.
In addition, Utracon was induced to award jobs to his father's firm, and ended up paying more than SG$1.4 million to it.
In 2011, he entered into an illicit agreement for Indus Global Line (IGL) to submit inflated quotations to Utracon for freight-forwarding services due to which Utracon was cheated of SG$375,000, The Straits Times reported.
On six occasions between May 2014 and November 2017, Hussain amassed SG$142,000 from his ill-gotten gains by methods that included engaging the services of local remittance agents.
The gunman entered the school at about 11:40 a.m. local time through an apparently unlocked door, and contrary to initial reports, encountered no resistance, Escalon said — the armed school safety officer, normally a fixture at educational facilities around the U.S., was not there.
Act 1 came Tuesday, when an 18-year-old gunman, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, killed 19 pre-teen children and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom before dying himself at the hands of law enforcement.
An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing 14 children, one teacher and injuring others, Gov. Greg Abbott said, and the gunman was dead. It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since the shocking attack in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, almost a decade ago.
Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. But in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, U.S., Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who hadn’t previously traveled to Africa.
Police found the victim off the side of a road with apparent gunshot wounds. The man died from his injuries at the scene and his identity is being withheld until his next of kin is notified, the police said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing that Pfizer's treatment was still too expensive. He noted that most countries in Latin America had no access to Pfizer’s drug, Paxlovid , which has been shown to cut the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization or death by up to 90%.
