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Shingen Takeda
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Woman who forged university certificate escapes jail term
By Leong Wee Keat, TODAY | Posted: 14 July 2011 2104 hrs
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SINGAPORE: A Chinese national, who forged her university certificate in her employment application, on Thursday escaped the benchmark four-week jail sentence for such crimes.
This comes after the Chief Justice allowed her appeal and Pan Hongling, 25, was fined the maximum S$15,000 instead.
She represented herself in the appeal hearing and argued it was her employment agent who handed her an accountancy diploma for her S Pass application.
Mid-level skilled foreigners - for example, technicians - may apply for an S Pass to work in Singapore.
Ms Pan signed the application form which was submitted to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), declaring that the particulars of the forged academic certificate were accurate.
But subsequent verification with Dalian University revealed that the academic certificate was forged and Ms Pan had not graduated from that university.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Siva Shanmugam told the High Court that MOM believed a syndicate was behind the employment racket.
As Ms Pan had never worked, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong wondered if Ms Pan had cheated the "system, but not the public".
Mr Shanmugam acknowledged that there was no victim, but he urged the court to look at the issue from a "macro perspective".
Mr Shanmugam said that the key person in the syndicate has been identified and MOM is currently conducting investigations.
- TODAY/ms
