Man jailed for cheating his supervisor of $31,000 in job scam
Boopalan Vengdasalam was sentenced to 14 months' jail for cheating his supervisor of $24,500 between late May and June 25 this year.
Published 26 October 2015
Elena Chong
Court Correspondent
SINGAPORE - A safety co-ordinator conned his supervisor into believing that he could get him jobs at a higher salary and to enter into a joint venture with him to provide two safety co-ordinators to a shipyard.
Boopalan Vengdasalam , 46, dishonestly induced the victim to pay him sums of $500 to $8,000 over a month-long period as commission, administration fees and his share in the joint venture.
He was sentenced to 14 months' jail on Monday after admitting to four counts of cheating Mr Eric Ng Peng Hao, a safety officer for Shimizu Corporation, of $24,500 between late May and June 25 this year.
Four other similar charges involving a total of $7,000 were taken into consideration.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Alexander Woon told the court that Boopalan started working under the victim at a worksite in Upper Thomson Road in December last year.
In late May, he told Mr Ng that he had a friend, named Kelvin, who worked for an oil and gas company. He said Kelvin's company was looking for safety officers for a project in a Jurong shipyard and that the job would pay $8,000 a month plus overtime.
Boopalan, who made up the story, asked Mr Ng for $5,000 to pay Kelvin's' commission to secure the job . The victim agreed and handed over $5,000 to Boopalan on May 28.
At around the same time, Boopalan told the victim that a shipyard was looking for someone to fill the position of "working at height assessor with scaffold supervisor''.
He lied to the victim that the job would pay $6,000 and that he could work in tandem with the safety officer job previously proposed by him. He said a $5,000 administrative fee had to be paid to get the job. Mr Ng transferred the amount to Boopalan's POSB bank account on May 30.
On June 13, he told the victim that Kelvin had informed him that the Jurong shipyard was looking for two safety coordinators. He suggested that they join forces to provide the two safety co-ordinators to the shipyard.
Boopalan further said the job would pay $6,000 a month plus overtime, and that he had found two men to whom they could subcontract the jobs. Mr Ng agreed and gave $8,000 cash to Boopalan four days later as his contribution.
On June 25, the victim was cheated of another $6,500 to supposedly pay for the two safety coordinators to be certified.
Mr Ng lodged a police report on June 28 that he had been cheated.
Boopalan, whose sentence was backdated to Aug 25, could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined on each charge.
