SINGAPORE - A company director ordered an employee to hide a safe that contained almost $5 million in ill-gotten gains when he suspected the police were after it.

The money inside the safe was linked to a conspiracy to misappropriate gas oil from Shell Eastern Petroleum's Pulau Bukom site and belonged to the man's uncle, Abdul Latif Ibrahim, who had been heavily involved in that illegal enterprise.

On Wednesday (May 25), Muhammad Hafiz Ismail, 33, pleaded guilty to obstructing the course of justice and was jailed for one week. Latif's case is still with the courts.

Hafiz was the director of Expedite Solutions and Brispec Singapore, which are firms in the hotel industry.

His uncle, Latif, was the financier of the companies then, the court heard.

In 2017, Latif moved the safe to Brispec's premises, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Norman Yew. Hafiz knew about the safe and that its contents belonged to his uncle.

Latif was arrested in 2018, when the police mounted an island-wide operation to arrest those linked to the Pulau Bukom conspiracy.

Following this, Hafiz received a call from the police, asking for the location of a vehicle belonging to Latif.

From this call, Hafiz learnt that his uncle had been arrested and called one of his co-directors, Mr Syed Ahmad Aeqasyah Syed Othman, to move the safe out of Brispec's premises. He told Mr Syed not to tell him the new location of the safe.

The DPP said: "(Hafiz) wanted the safe to be moved so that the police would not discover it at premises under his control, and he and his companies could be distanced from Latif's criminal conduct."

Mr Syed in turn contacted Mr Mohamad Fareed Hassan Marzuki - a logistics officer at Brispec and also Hafiz's uncle - to shift the safe without telling him the location. The safe was moved to a storage unit at Kaki Bukit.

The police soon learnt that the safe was with Hafiz and suspected that it contained benefits from Latif's involvement in the heist. However, when Hafiz was asked, he lied, denying any knowledge of the safe.

The police then asked Hafiz if he had contacted anyone after they called earlier. Hafiz said he had contacted Mr Fareed and was told to lead the police to him.

On the way there, Hafiz admitted to the officers that he knew about the safe and located it with the help of Mr Fareed.

The police later found that the safe was moved under Hafiz's direction. When the safe was seized, $4.43 million and US$243,100 (S$334,200) in cash, as well as a 100g gold-coloured bar were retrieved from it.

The contents belonged to Latif and were benefits from involvement in the heist, said the DPP, seeking two to four weeks' jail for Hafiz.

DPP Yew said Hafiz committed the offence for personal benefit - to distance himself from Latif's criminal deeds - when there was no need to lie.

Seeking not more than one week's jail for Hafiz, defence lawyer Justin Ng said his client eventually cooperated with the police, who were able to seize the safe with little interference.

The offence had significant impact on Hafiz, a father of four, who resigned from his job and is likely to lose his licence as a financial adviser, Mr Ng said.

In sentencing, the judge noted that Hafiz did not disrupt the evidence, adding that the offence was out of Hafiz's own foolishness.

Those who intentionally obstruct the course of justice can be jailed for up to seven years and fined.

At least 26 people have been hauled to court over the Pulau Bukom conspiracy, which was first noticed by Shell in 2015, when it observed significant unidentified oil loss at Pulau Bukom.