SINGAPORE – Two men schemed to avoid the payment of duties on alcohol meant for export by removing some bottles from shipping containers and replacing them with cheaper beer.
Jake Lam, 59, director of a local alcohol retailer and warehouse operator, came up with the plan to hide bottles of liquor that were meant for export in his Jurong warehouse.
He instructed his warehouse manager, Teo Ee Meng, 50, to replace the liquor they had removed from two shipping containers with beer, which is subjected to lower duties, before marking the contents for export.
The pair would then move the bottles of liquor they had taken from the shipping container to the retail shop to be sold locally.
They hid more than 15,800 bottles of liquor in this manner, skirting duties amounting to nearly $250,000, before they were caught.
On March 19, Lam and Teo each pleaded guilty to three charges for the fraudulent evasion of duties.
Nine counts of evasion of duties, 12 charges of evasion of Goods and Services Tax (GST), and two charges over illegally removing goods from customs control were taken into consideration in sentencing.
Lam was sentenced to a fine of $1,350,000 while Teo was sentenced to a fine of $1,050,000.
Court documents showed that sometime in 2020, Teo, who was the warehouse manager of Kingsman Wine & Spirits and TWI Wine & Spirits, had acted on Lam’s instructions to withhold certain quantities of liquor from being loaded into containers marked for export.
Lam also instructed Teo to use beer to replace the missing liquor, to make up for the difference in weight of the bottles meant for export.
Authorities caught on to the scheme after officers from Singapore Customs conducted a check on two shipping containers from TWI that were marked for export on Aug 10, 2021.
Inspections revealed that the contents of the containers were different from what had been declared by Lam’s companies.
Later, some of the missing liquor was found when Customs officers raided TWI’s warehouse. Some of the missing bottles were also found in Kingsman’s retail shop.
Duties on the unpaid liquor added up to $249,862.90 in all. Lam has since made full restitution on the unpaid duties and GST.
Those found guilty of the fraudulent evasion of duties or GST, or the illegal removal of goods from customs control, can face fines up to 20 times the amount originally evaded. They can also be jailed for up to two years.
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