A Singaporean court has sentenced an Indian national and his Malaysian colleague to over six years’ jail term for siphoning more than 300,000 tonnes of gas oil worth, at least, 200 million Singapore dollars (USD150 million approximately) in 2017-18 at the Royal Dutch Shell’s Singapore refinery.
According to media reports, the Indian, Sadagopan Premnath, 40, was jailed for six years and eight months while his Malaysian colleague, Muhammad Ashraf Hamzah, 39, received nine and a half years’ jail term for the heist that is said to be the largest in marine gas oil at Royal Dutch Shell’s Singapore refinery.
Sadagopan had earlier pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal breach of trust, with another five charges taken into consideration for sentencing, the report said.
He was involved in the scheme between 2017 and 2018, aiding in the misappropriation of USD36 million (about 49.1 million Singaporean dollars) worth of gas oil.
He conviction is said to have received about USD 150,000 from the criminal proceeds.
The duo had followed instructions to open and close valves so that ships could receive the stolen gas oil without being detected.
According to a Singaporean newspaper, Today, two others–a Vietnamese ship captain Doan Xuan Than and another ship officer, Dang Van Hanh were also jailed for receiving between 3.5 million Singaporean dollars and 7.7 million Singapore dollars of gas oil.
In early 2015, Shell began observing significant unidentified gas oil loss at the refinery on Pulau (island) Bukom.
A 2015 review did not turn up anything suspicious. Shell then implemented various measures to improve processes but the misappropriation continued.
In early 2017, it engaged a third-party consultant to conduct a review, but the investigation did not yield a conclusive explanation for the high losses.
It soon experienced its highest hydrocarbon loss since 2015. Shell then hired a global team of analysts, who detected the misappropriation, and a police report was made.
Shell had since taken various measures to improve its systems and processes, including developing monitoring software to detect potential thefts.
So far, Shell has incurred about six million Singapore dollars in costs to manage the consequences of the misappropriation.
For each charge of criminal breach of trust as an employee, each man could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
