Suriamoorthy Subakaran, who was a project manager at Bharath Electrical Engineering at the time of the alleged offences, was handed the most charges – six. - Photo: ST file
SINGAPORE: Nine men, including seven accused of graft, were handed 23 charges in total involving more than $520,000, linked to two former employees of a gases solutions company called Air Liquide Singapore (ALSG).
They are accused of committing their offences between 2017 and 2022.
Suriamoorthy Subakaran, 47, who was a project manager at Bharath Electrical Engineering at the time of the alleged offences, was handed the most charges – six.
He is accused of offences including engaging in a conspiracy with Sundarraj Manikandan, then a project engineer at ALSG, to falsify invoices. Sundarraj also operated a company called Voltz Engineering Works, said the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).
On two separate occasions between June and August 2021, the pair allegedly worked together to falsify two invoices amounting to around $130,000 as payments to Voltz for jobs purportedly provided by Bharath Electrical. In reality, these works were not performed.
“These payments represented benefits from criminal conduct of another individual, and they were allegedly found to be in Suriamoorthy’s possession,” CPIB said.
During the same period, Suriamoorthy also allegedly conspired with Vedaiyan Raja Mohan, 46, to falsify two invoices amounting to $113,200 as payments to Bharath Electrical for works purportedly provided by Zhan Tech which were, in fact, never performed.
Vedaiyan was a director of Zhan Tech at the time.
He was handed two counts each of falsifying an invoice and dealing with the benefits of alleged criminal conduct by Upadhyay Abhishekumar Rajendrabhai, then a former senior procurement engineer of ALSG.
Lim Siew Hock, 60, and Ng Teck Leng, 61, were each handed three charges for offences including graft. Both of them were directors at LDC General Construction at the time of the alleged offences.
CPIB said that in 2020, Lim allegedly conspired with Ng to give bribes of up to $125,000 to Sundarraj to further the business interests of LDC with ALSG.
Separately, between December 2019 and September 2022, Lim allegedly conspired with Ng and Sundarraj to falsify two invoices amounting to $179,570 as payment for works purportedly provided by LDC and Voltz, which were, in fact, never performed.
Kalimuthu Arumugam, 54, and Sandran Ramalingam, 56, were directors of Technihub IEA Solutions at the time of the alleged offences, and they were each handed two graft charges on Jan 6.
Meanwhile, Thangavel Nagadurai, 48, Lai Ngiap Kiah, 66, and K. Jaya Kumar, 66, were each charged with one count of graft.
At the time of the alleged offences, Thangavel was a director at Toyah Construction & Engineering, Lai was a director at RCS Engineering, and Jaya Kumar owned Ohm Instrumentation.
On separate occasions between 2019 and 2021, Thangavel and Lai allegedly gave bribes to Upadhyay, while Kalimuthu allegedly conspired with Sandran to do the same.
The bribes totalling $160,000 were either inducements or rewards to further the business interests of Toyah, Technihub IEA and RCS with ALSG, said CPIB’s spokesperson.
In 2017, Jaya Kumar allegedly offered a bribe of at least $500 to Sundarraj, to further Ohm Instrumentation’s business interests with ALSG.
Thangavel is expected to plead guilty on Feb 20. The cases involving most of the other men have been adjourned to Feb 4.
Sundarraj and Upadhyay were not charged in court on Tuesday (Jan 6). - The Straits Times/ANN
