A former master chef at Goodwood Park Hotel became the second chef to be jailed for corruption. Tan Ah Teng, 46, was sentenced to four months in prison on Friday.
He had pleaded guilty to receiving nearly $200,000 in bribes between January 2007 and August 2009 from seafood supplier Tay Ee Tiong, the sole proprietor of Wealthy Seafood Product and Enterprise.
A dozen other corrupt chefs bribed by Tay have been dealt with. Last October, Chik Ka Chung, 48, former executive chef of Wan Hao restaurant in the Marriott Hotel, was sentenced to four months' jail for receiving $177,704 in bribes.
The others were fined as in the case of Chung Yiu Ming, 54, from the Sheraton Towers Singapore hotel. He was fined $17,000 for taking bribes of $21,897 from July 2007 to April 2009.
In July 2008, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) received information that Wealthy Seafood had been bribing chefs of various hotels and restaurants to continue buying items such as sharks fin, abalone, scallops and crabs. Tay had approached Tan and Chung and offered them commissions for the purchases made by the hotels.
Pleading for a lenient sentence, Tan's lawyer Winston Quek and Chung's defence counsel Loh Lin Kok said that their clients did not solicit the bribes.
In sentencing Tan, District Judge Salina Ishak said that a jail term was appropriate as the amount of bribes he accepted was large. Tan and Chung were also ordered to surrender to the CPIB all the bribes they received.
Tay, 57, was jailed for 1½ years in September 2011 and has served his sentence.
