Former head chef jailed for taking $74k in bribes
File Photo: Tong Yu Chou, 53.
By Khushwant Singh
The Straits Times
Sunday, Jun 23, 2013
The former head chef of an Orchard Road eatery was jailed for two months on Thursday for receiving kickbacks from a supplier.
Tong Yu Chou, 53, who worked at Teochew City Seafood Restaurant, admitted accepting $74,355 from Wealthy Seafood between 2006 and 2009.
He was also ordered to pay a penalty of the total amount of bribes he received from Tay Ee Tiong, then owner of Wealthy Seafood Product and Enterprise.
A district court heard that the PFS company, which manages Teochew City, started ordering from Wealthy Seafood in 1998.
In 2006, Tay called Tong to thank him for the support and offered him a 5 per cent bribe of all future purchases.
In July 2009, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau learnt that Tay had been paying bribes to several chefs to induce them to order seafood from his firm. Tong is the 10th chef to be prosecuted.
Asking the court to impose a jail term, Deputy Public Prosecutor Haniza Abnass said that such kickbacks were "an endemic form of corruption in the industry that was subverting honest commercial practices". Pleading for a lenient sentence, defence counsel Tan Beng Hock said his client has downgraded to a three-room flat so as to return the full amount of kickbacks he received to PFS.
Tay, 56, was jailed for 18 months in September 2011 and has served his sentence. Six other chefs, who received between $4,496 and $36,900 from him, were fined and ordered to pay penalties. Three others were jailed.
