Singapore authorities have charged three men, including two former employees of Japanese offshore company Modec, for alleged corruption, cheating and money laundering offences.
The three were named as Harish Singhal, 59, a construction manager at Modec Offshore Productions System (MOPS), Gopinath Kuppusamy, 52, chief engineer at MOPS and Kottaki Srinivas Patnaik, 53, director of Neptune Ship Management at the material time.
Between 2011 and 2016, Harish is alleged to have conspired with four others to corruptly accept gratifications totalling about $942,000 and SGD 165,000 ($120,000) from Patnaik as a “reward for advancing the business interest of Neptune with MOPS”.
Harish also allegedly conspired with Patnaik and three others to disguise about $313,000 of the benefits from the criminal conduct in the form of 12 fictitious invoices for payments from Staghorn Marine Services in India and Staghorn Marine Services in Dubai to Neptune.
Between 2018 and 2021, Harish allegedly conspired with Gopinath and two others to cheat MOPS when they concealed from MOPS that they are entitled to a share of earnings from the payments MOPS made to Staghorn Marine Services in Singapore.
This was done when approving the invoices issued by Staghorn Singapore to MOPS and as a result, MOPS was deceived into paying a total of $4.64m, SGD 1.3m and CNY 1.26m ($17,740) to Staghorn Singapore.
Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said the city-state adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach towards corruption.
“Any person who is convicted of a corruption offence can be fined up to SGD 100,000 or sentenced to imprisonment of up to five years or both,” it said.
“Any person who is convicted of an offence to cheat and dishonestly induce a delivery or cause the delivery of property can be fined and sentenced to imprisonment of up to 10 years.”
Similarly, any person who is convicted of an offence under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act can be fined up to SGD 500,000 or sentenced to imprisonment of up to 10 or both, the CPIB said.
Modec said in a statement that it had been notified that certain employees of a subsidiary had been charged in the Singapore courts for offences relating to bribery and corruption.
“As the matter is before the Singapore courts, we are not in a position to make any further comments on the matter to avoid interfering with the judicial process,” the company said.
“We will continue to actively cooperate with the Singapore authorities and will make further announcements promptly if and when we are aware of any material developments and are permitted to make such announcements.”
Modec, which says it takes a zero-tolerance approach towards bribery and corruption, said the allegations were made in a whistleblower’s report submitted via its internal reporting system and were internally investigated with the assistance of external counsel.
“Following our internal investigations, a report was made to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau of Singapore,” Modec said.
“We have been fully cooperating with the investigations, have followed the progress of the matter, and have made preparations to manage the outcome and implications.”
