ICA officer jailed for graft

SINGAPORE- An immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) staff member who gave and accepted bribes to help foreigners prolong their stay in Singapore was jailed for 21 months yesterday.

Mohammed Mustaffa Mohabat Ali, 29, was also ordered to pay a penalty of $8,050.

He admitted to eight charges of corruptly accepting bribes as rewards for granting 30-day social visit passes to various foreigners.

He also admitted four charges of corruptly giving bribes to four colleagues to do the same. Twenty-three other charges were considered during his sentencing.

Mustaffa was attached to Tuas Checkpoint as a primary screening officer whose duties included assessing whether foreigners met entry requirements, inspecting passports and granting visit passes.

Investigation showed that between October 2010 and June 2011, he accepted bribes in return for granting visit passes to Filipino and Vietnamese women.

He worked mainly with Philibert Tng Hai Swee, who referred the foreigners to him.

Tng would provide transportation for the foreigners, drive them through the checkpoint and seek out Mustaffa to grant the visit passes when he was on duty at the checkpoint.

Mustaffa charged between $250 and $500 for every extension. Tng would collect the money from the foreigners and keep $50 per foreigner for himself as a referral fee.

Investigations showed that 33 foreigners were involved in Mustaffa's scheme.

To facilitate the scheme, Mustaffa engaged the help of four other men, including three Malaysians, to ferry the women on a round trip between Singapore and Malaysia for a fee.

He also recruited four colleagues to help him in the scheme.

He instructed Mohamed Nazrul Noor Mohamed, Lukmanulhakim Samsun, Nor Hidayat Mohamed Hussain, and Ezhar Kamis to grant the foreigners he would send to them new 30-day social visit passes without carrying out the checks required by ICA.

Hidayat, who left the ICA in February 2011, was recruited as a driver. Tng died from lung cancer in October 2011.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ilona Tan said Mustaffa usually arranged for the drivers to ferry the foreigners using the scheme on the days he was working. Citing aggravating factors in this case, the DPP said corruption offences, if left unchecked, would seriously compromise public safety, enabling criminals and other undesirable people to enter Singapore undetected.

Mustaffa, she said, had clearly compromised the integrity of his office for personal benefit and betrayed the public's trust and confidence in ICA. The offences were planned and premeditated.

He was the mastermind behind the scheme; he extended his web of corruption to his colleagues and urged them to act contrary to their duties.

"The period of offending showed that he is a serial offender who had pursued a systematic course of criminal behaviour," she added. She said he committed the offences out of greed.

The maximum penalty for corruption is a $100,000 fine and five years' jail on each charge.

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