The sole proprietor of gardening firm Chua Landscape, he was jailed for six months last week for hiring an illegal immigrant to work as a gardener.

The charge against Ban Hock, a supervisor in the firm, was withdrawn on Tuesday but he was given a stern warning from the police.

The cops are now looking for the agent, a Bangladeshi national, known as Johnny.

Such agents are common, employers say but they cannot be trusted.

Someone who came close to being misled was 52-year-old P.K. Ganesan, owner of a cleaning company.

In December last year, an agent, also a Bangladeshi, turned up at his office in Serangoon with three foreign workers.

Mr Ganesan wanted to double-check the validity of their work passes and was promised photocopies the next day.

The agent never showed up again.

Unlike him, Ban Siong had taken Johnny at his word when offered a foreign worker with a work pass in 2006.

He agreed to hire the 30-year-old worker, identified only as Babul in court documents, as a gardener for $22 a day, plus $3.50 an hour for overtime work.

Babul was assigned work by Ban Hock until he was arrested on March 31 when a check by Ministry of Manpower officers revealed that he had no work pass and was an illegal immigrant to boot.

He was jailed for eight months and caned four times.

Both Chua brothers admitted that they failed to check if he had a valid passport and work permit.

Ban Siong decided to take the rap as he had been previously fined $8,600 for employing a foreign worker meant for another company.

He had wanted to preserve his brother's clean record, said his lawyer Anand Nalachandran.

Asking the court for the minimum jail sentence of six months, Mr Nalachandran said: 'Ban Siong had no grounds to believe that he had hired an illegal immigrant as he was also paying the foreign worker levy of $400 a month to Johnny.'

He added that this did not absolve his client of his obligation to confirm the validity of Babul's work pass.

The maximum penalty is a two-year jail term and a $6,000 fine.