Businessman fined S$212,000 for customs offences

[Xing Cai]

Businessman fined S$212,000 for customs offences
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 29 November 2010 1541 hrs
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SINGAPORE: A Singaporean businessman was fined a total of S$212,000 for a series of Customs offences in court on Monday.

Thirty-year-old Yeo Hock Leong will have to serve 106 weeks' imprisonment, if he can't pay the fine.

Yeo had pleaded guilty in June to 20 charges of incorrectly declaring the values of mobile phones imported into Singapore.

Close to 80 remaining charges were taken into consideration.

The charges involved more than 79,000 mobile phones and the total Goods & Services Tax (GST) evaded exceeded S$182,000.

In addition, Yeo, who is the director of Vision Your Gadgets Station, was also convicted for one count of abetting in the offence of obstructing Customs officers in the seizure of goods, and one count of failure to retain trade documents.

Yeo's two employees - Ong Soon Leng, 30 and Cheng Zhiyi, 26 - were convicted for the offence of obstructing Customs officers in the seizure of goods, and each fined S$6,000 or in default, 3 weeks' imprisonment.

In his submissions to Customs, Yeo had declared the functioning mobile phones as defective.

Cheng spilled the beans of the unlawful act committed together with Ong and Yeo when he was questioned by Customs officers.

Yeo had alerted Ong earlier over the telephone about the possibility of a raid by Customs officers.

Yeo instructed Ong to remove certain trade documents and some stocks of mobile phones from the office to prevent seizure of the items by Customs officers.

Ong roped in Cheng to help carry out their boss' instructions.

-CNA/ac