Former seafood boss jailed for giving S$1m in bribes

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Former seafood boss jailed for giving S$1m in bribes
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 12 September 2011 1650 hrs

SINGAPORE: A former seafood supplier who gave out S$992,403.90 in bribes to chefs of renowned hotels and restaurants, was sentenced on Monday to 18 months' jail.

Fifty-six-year-old Tay Ee Tiong, who was the sole-proprietor of Wealthy Seafood Product and Enterprise, pleaded guilty in May to 20 charges involving 19 chefs.

A total of 203 similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that Tay bribed the chefs between February 2006 and August 2009. They came from 16 different restaurants and hotels including the Hilton, the Regent and the Shangri-La.

The bald, bespectacled Tay gave the chefs between $232 and S$24,143.40 in bribes to ensure that their employers would continue buying products from Wealthy Seafood.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau launched an investigation against Tay after they received a tip-off in July 2009, accusing him of bribing the chefs.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Vala Muthupalaniappan had urged the court to give Tay a deterrent sentence of between three months and eight months' jail for each charge.

She stressed that the amounts involved in the case were substantial and the offences were committed over a long period of time.

However, defence counsel, Subhas Anandan said that the "need for general deterrence is not significantly pressing" as "public interest was not compromised".

He urged the court to instead, give his client a hefty fine, given that Tay was declared bankrupt in February last year.

Before handing out the sentence, District Judge Jasvender Kaur said that Tay was seeking to get "an unfair business advantage" over his competitors by bribing the chefs.

She added that there is a "clear public interest in deterring such acts of corruption" to ensure that the "interests of competitors and of the public are not harmed".

Tay, who is appealing against the sentence, was offered a bail of S$50,000.

MediaCorp understands that the chefs allegedly involved in the case haven't been charged in court.

- CNA/ck

 

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Tay Ee Tiong, 55, the then owner of Wealthy Seafood Product and Enterprise, admitted to 20 charges of corruptly giving bribes totalling $160,186 to 19 chefs from 16 hotels and restaurants from 2007 to 2009 to ensure that they continued buying seafood products from the company. -- ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW​

 

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CPIB earns its keep by snaring non-elitist scoundrels.

 

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Four chefs from renowned hotels charged with corruption

Clockwise from top-left: Tan Ah Teng, master chef at Goodwood Park Hotel, Yang Lai Fatt, chef of Meritus Mandarin Hotel, Chik Ka Chung, chef at Singapore Marriot Hotel, and Goh Wooi Cheat,chef at Regent Hotel.​

Singapore, June 8, 2012

Four chefs from well-known hotels in Singapore were charged with corruption on Friday, reported The Straits Times.

They are - Tan Ah Teng, of Goodwood Park Hotel, Chik Ka Chung, who was with Wan Hao restaurant in Marriot Hotel, Yang Lai Fatt, formerly with Meritus Mandarin, and Goh Wooi Cheat, formerly the chef of Summer Palace of Regent Hotel.

The men are among 19 alleged to have accepted nearly $1 million in kickbacks from seafood supplier, Wealthy Seafood Product and Enterprise, with the offences said to have occurred between 2006 to 2009.

Tay Ee Tiong, the former proprietor of the Bedok-based seafood supplier, was jailed for 11 months in September 2011.

He had pleaded guilty to bribing 19 chefs from 17 hotels and restaurants, with the amount totalling $992,404.

Tan, 46, who remains chef of Goodwood Park hotel's Min Jiang restaurant, is accused of accepting $193,322 from Tay, and faces 20 charges.

Chik, who resigned as chef of Marriott's Wan Hao restaurant when the case first surfaced, faces 21 charges and is accused of accepting $177,704 in kickbacks.

Yang was charged on 15 counts of corruption and is said to have accepted $128,405.

Goh, 48, is said to have received $158,818 from Tay. He faces 14 corruption charges. He is now an executive chef at Grand Hyatt Beijing and was given permission by the court to travel there.

Pre-trial conferences for all four cases will be held on July 19.

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