Company director fined $1.35 million for fraudulent evasion of duties on 15,820 bottles of liquor
A director of two companies was fined $1,350,000 on March 19 after being found guilty of fraudulent evasion of duties amounting to about $249,863 on 15,820 bottles of liquor.
At the time of the offence, Singaporean Jake Lam, 59, was the director of liquor retailer Kingsman Wine & Spirits and licensed warehouse operator TWI Wine & Spirits.
Teo Ee Meng, 50, who was the warehouse manager of these two companies, was also fined $1,050,000 for his involvement in a fraudulent scheme to divert liquor declared for export into the local market.
Lam and Teo each pleaded guilty to three charges of fraudulent evasion of duties.
Another nine charges of fraudulent evasion of duties, 12 charges of fraudulent evasion of goods and services tax (GST), and two charges of illegal removal of goods from customs control were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing for each of them.
Singapore Customs officers uncovered discrepancies during an inspection of two containers containing liquor removed from TWI's licensed warehouse in August 2021. The quantities and types of liquor in the containers were different from what were declared to Customs in the export permits.
The missing bottles were later found at TWI's licensed warehouse when Customs officers raided the warehouse. Additionally, bottles of liquor previously declared to be exported by TWI were also found on Kingman's premises.
Lam and Teo admitted to selling the liquor locally through Kingsman without paying duties and GST, instead of exporting them as declared.
Lam was the mastermind behind the scheme with Teo assisting him in the fraudulent activities.
As the warehouse manager of Kingsman and TWI, Teo was responsible for overseeing warehouse stocks and the loading and unloading of containers.
Acting on Lam's instructions, Teo would withhold certain quantities of liquor from being loaded into the containers instead of exporting them. The bottles were then moved from TWI's premises to Kingsman's premises for local sale without Customs' approval and payment of the requisite duties and GST.
To cover up the discrepancies, Lam instructed Teo to replace the diverted liquor with beer, which were subject to lower duties, in the export containers.
Lam would then instruct a 60-year-old male Singaporean, employed as a permit declarant of TWI and manager of Kingsman, to make false export permit declarations by declaring the liquors retained in Kingsman's premises in export permits. Court proceedings against the latter are ongoing.
Under the law, those involved in the fraudulent evasion of duties or GST or in the illegal removal of goods from customs control can face fines of up to 20 times the amount evaded, imprisonment for up to two years or both.
