Company director who lied to police following tanker's hijacking jailed
SINGAPORE — A 34-year-old company director was jailed two weeks on Tuesday (4 June) for lying to the police after pirates hijacked a tanker that his firm had chartered.
Lau Xuanhong Louis had deceived the authorities in order to cover up the 2,000 metric tonnes of illegally purchased crude oil that the Singapore-registered MT Joaquim was carrying. The employee of Yu Tat Pte Ltd was also jailed three weeks and fined $4,000 on a separate drink-driving charge.
Two employees of Prosberbiz Petroleum who were involved in the sale of the crude oil – Chew Hoe Soon, 55; and Lim Puay Kwang, 41 – have already been dealt with by the courts.
Hijacked by pirates
On 8 August 2015, pirates hijacked the MT Joaquim, according to court documents.
After the Police Coast Guard (PCG) were alerted to the incident, PCG located the vessel off Pulau Rupat in Indonesian waters. It was later established that the pirates had stolen 2,000 metric tonnes of crude oil from the vessel.
Investigations also revealed that the crude oil had been transferred from a Malta-registered tanker named Universal Brave along the Straits of Malacca sometime between 8.56pm on 7 August 2015 and 4.06am the following day.
Chew was also found to have passed US$200,000 (S$274,000) in cash to a person named Tan Boon Kwong to make the illegal purchase. Tan, who had failed to declare that he was bringing the money out of Singapore, was later fined $8,000 for his actions.
When the hijacking took place, Lau called Lim and instructed the latter to lie to the Malaysian authorities that the MT Joaquim had been travelling towards Langkawi to deliver cargo to Siam Gulf Petroleum, Thailand, when the incident took place. The vessel, however, had actually been on its way back to Singapore after picking up the crude oil.
Trio agreed to tell false story
Worried that they might be interviewed by the PCG in relation to the crude oil purchase, Chew, Lim and Lau met at Beauty World Plaza in Singapore on 10 August. The trio agreed to stick to Lim’s false story.
The following day, Lau told the police the fake information while being interviewed at the Central Police Division. Lim and Chew did the same on 10 and 12 August, respectively.
All three retracted their false statements only about three months later.
Drink driving conviction
At around 4am on 13 February this year, Lau was stopped by the police while driving along Kallang Road in the direction of Sims Avenue.
He was found to have more than twice the limit for alcohol in his breath at the time. Lau, who had previously been convicted of the same offence in 2011, was also banned from driving all classes of vehicles for three years in addition to his jail sentence and fine.
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