A tugboat Captain was sentenced to 28 weeks jail, after pleading guilty to charges of stealing gas oil and fleeing.
According to information, on 2016, the Captain, who at the time was working for Eng Hup Shipping, had a plan of siphoning gas oil from the vessel’s daily usage tank and selling it. Four more employees supported the arrangement.
To siphon gas, one crew member would switch on a pump to transfer newly received gas from a maintenance hole in the ship’s engine room to yet another.
On February 1 2016, the crew decided to steer the vessel away from their worksite, in order to locate a buyer for the gas oil they siphoned. While at sea, the crew members saw an unknown vessel.
The the Captain asked the crew members on board the ship if they would be keen to buy the gas, to which they agreed. However, the actions were discovered about an hour later by another worker associated with Eng Hup Shipping, who was on another vessel.
Afraid of getting caught by the police, the Captain asked his crew to steer the vessel to the outer port limits of Singapore, towards Indonesia.
The Captain and the remaining crew members then abandoned the ship, but six years later the Captain was arrested, when he returned to Singapore to participate in a one-day shipping course.
At the court he pleaded guilty. For cases involving a criminal breach of trust concerning the property, he may have been imprisoned for up to 15 years and fined.
What is more, after the Immigration Act, anyone who departs from Singapore illegally, faces at least six months and up to two years of imprisonment and may be fined up to S$6,000.
