Company director jailed after lying about oil tanker hijack
Afraid of being questioned by the police about an illegal crude oil purchase, a company director and two men conspired to provide false information to the police.
They did it because the Singapore-registered vessel that received the illegal oil had been hijacked shortly after that by pirates.
Louis Lau Xuanhong, 33, director of a trading company, had chartered the Singapore-registered tanker, MT Joaquim.
Around Aug 8, 2015, in the Malacca Strait, the MT Joaquim had received 2,000 metric tonnes of crude oil from a Malta-registered tanker. The MT Joaquim then headed for Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia.
Along the way, it was hijacked by pirates who stole the crude oil. The tanker was later found in Indonesian waters.
When the hijack happened, Lau called another man, Lim Puay Kwang, 41, a bunker clerk at Prosberbiz Petroleum. He told Lim to falsely inform the Malaysian authorities the tanker was travelling towards Langkawi to deliver cargo to Thailand, but the vessel was hijacked during the journey.
Lau, Lim, and Chew Hoe Soon, 55, the director of Prosberbiz Petroleum, met days later at McDonald's at Beauty World Plaza.
There, the trio decided to lie to the Singapore police, and hide the fact the tanker had received the crude oil.
They also did not reveal that US$200,000 (S$274,000) had been taken out of Singapore undeclared to pay for the crude oil.
On Aug 11, 2015, Lau lied to the police stating his tanker had been hijacked while on its way to unload cargo to a Thailand buyer.
In February this year, Lau was caught drink driving along Kallang Road.
Yesterday, Lau was sentenced to five weeks' jail, fined $4,000 and disqualified from driving for three years for his offences.
Chew was given two weeks' jail, and Lim fined $3,000.
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