The three men charged last Saturday in connection with the theft of oil from Shell's Pulau Bukom refinery were each hit with a new charge yesterday.
Alan Tan Cheng Chuan, 45, and Ng Hock Teck, 54, who have been charged with conspiring to dishonestly receive $160,000 worth of stolen gas oil on Nov 11 last year, now face a new charge of receiving 764.81 tonnes of marine gas oil worth $252,558 at Pulau Bukom's wharf 1E on July 24 last year.
The charge states that the stolen oil was transferred from Pulau Bukom to a Singapore-registered vessel, Sentek 26.
Ship master Doan Xuan Than, 46, a Vietnamese national, is accused of conspiring with Koh Choon Wei, 35, to dishonestly receive 1,133 tonnes of gas oil worth US$639,726 (S$847,000) on Dec 1 last year at wharf 6. He is said to have transferred the stolen oil to a Panama-registered vessel MT Gaea at Pulau Bukom. His first charge states that he received 1,348.8 tonnes of fuel worth $736,445 on Dec 31 last year by transferring the stolen property to the same vessel.
All three accused were represented by lawyers.
The prosecution sought a further week's remand for the trio for further investigations. Their case will be mentioned on Jan 25.
To date, 14 men have been brought to court over the multimillion-dollar fuel theft, the biggest in recent memory.
During an islandwide operation on Jan 7, police seized around $3.05 million in cash, as well as a 12,000-tonne tanker.