Shell heist: Jail for man who helped firm acquire misappropriated fuel worth nearly $18.4m
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
SINGAPORE – A man who helped his then employer acquire more than 28,000 tonnes of misappropriated marine gas oil worth around US$13.58 million (nearly S$18.36 million, according to court documents) was sentenced to seven years, four months and two weeks’ jail on Jan 10.
At the time of the offences, Wong Wai Meng, 58, was employed as a bunker clerk at Sentek Marine & Trading, a Singapore-based firm dealing with fuels.
Wong, who received more than $286,000 from the company for his assistance, pleaded guilty in November 2024
He committed the offences over 46 occasions between August 2014 and December 2017.
He also faced 12 charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act earlier but all of them have been withdrawn.
On Jan 10, District Judge Crystal Tan granted Wong a discharge amounting to an acquittal for them. This means he cannot be charged again over the same offences.
The reasons behind the move were not disclosed in court.
In earlier proceedings, the prosecution said that Wong’s job scope included facilitating the transfer and receipt of cargo, such as gas oil, on board a bunkering vessel called Sentek 22.
Gas oil is refined crude oil and is often used as fuel and an alternative to diesel in some countries.
The fuel had been dishonestly misappropriated from Shell Eastern Petroleum’s Pulau Bukom facility by a group of rogue Shell employees.
Several former employees who were key members of the group were dealt with in court earlier.
The group had secretly siphoned off more than 200,000 tonnes of gas oil worth more than $120 million between August 2014 and January 2018.
For the current case, the prosecution said that the rogue Shell employees had sold misappropriated gas oil to Sentek, which agreed to buy it at prices lower than the prevailing estimated market value.
The prosecution told the court that in 2013, Wong and Alvin Koh Koon Yian, 53, were assigned as bunker clerks to Sentek 22.
The prosecution added that another man, Ng Hock Teck, 61, who was then a manager at Sentek, later told Wong about a “project” in which the vessel would receive extra gas oil on top of the official amount it should get.
The cases involving Ng and Koh are still pending.
Deputy public prosecutors Christopher Ong, Ryan Lim, Niranjan Ranjakunalan and Huo Jiongrui stated in court documents that Wong knew that he would be helping Sentek acquire misappropriated gas oil from Shell Pulau Bukom.
He also understood that this was approved by the management of Sentek.
The company later sold the misappropriated gas oil to its customers, including foreign vessels, at or around market price, while some of the fuel was transferred to its other vessels.
In March 2015, Wong was assigned to another vessel called Sentek 26, which was also used to receive misappropriated fuel.
In August 2017, a Shell representative lodged a police report over an unidentified loss of gas oil worth around $3 million and Wong was later charged in court in 2022.
His bail was set at $30,000 on Jan 10 and he is expected to begin serving his sentence on Feb 10.
