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SINGAPORE \u2013 A former Shell employee who played a leadership role in a long-running scheme to misappropriate fuel from the oil giant\u2019s Pulau Bukom facility was sentenced to 21 years\u2019 jail on March 30.<\/p>\n
Richard Goh Chee Keong, 56, a Malaysian, pleaded guilty to 24 charges in relation to his involvement in a conspiracy to siphon $100 million worth of marine gas oil between August 2014 and January 2018.<\/p>\n
Another 26 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing. <\/p>\n
The 50 charges he faced comprised 39 for criminal breach of trust, six for money laundering, four for corruption, and one for drug consumption.<\/p>\n
Goh admitted receiving at least $1.5 million in criminal benefits, spending the money on property, at least two cars and investments, as well as saving a portion. <\/p>\n
He has consented to the forfeiture of assets seized from him, worth $1.07 million, as compensation to Shell.<\/p>\n
High Court judge Dedar Singh Gill granted a request by Goh to defer his sentence, and ordered him to surrender at the State Courts on April 20. <\/p>\n
Eleven other former Shell employees have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from one year and four months to 29 years for their roles.<\/p>\n
Goh started working at the Pulau Bukom facility in 1993 as a technician. At the time of the offences, he was an assistant production team leader and a shore loading officer.<\/p>\n
He was recruited by Abdul Latif Ibrahim, 68, one of the two original masterminds who had conceived the overall scheme. <\/p>\n
Goh recruited other team members and gave them directions, planned the loading of stolen oil onto vessels, and bribed independent surveyors to persuade them to turn a blind eye to the illegal activities.<\/p>\n
Latif was sentenced in July 2025 to 25 years and two months\u2019 jail after he admitted to leading a group of rogue employees<\/span><\/a> to siphon $100 million worth of marine gas oil between August 2014 and January 2018.<\/p>\n Latif received at least $7 million in illicit gains, which he spent on luxury watches, expensive cars and property.<\/p>\n The other mastermind, Juandi Pungot, who was then 45 years old,\u00a0was sentenced to 29 years\u2019 jail in 2022\u00a0<\/span><\/a>for leading a separate team that siphoned $127 million worth of fuel from the facility.<\/p>\n Juandi received about $5.6 million in criminal proceeds, which he spent on designer watches, cars and property. <\/p>\n Latif and Juandi began misappropriating fuel from the facility in 2007, when they were working in the same team.<\/p>\n The stolen oil was loaded onto a bunker ship in deals brokered through a middleman.<\/p>\n In early 2013, Latif left the team after a falling-out with the other syndicate members.<\/p>\n That year, he accepted Shell\u2019s offer of re-employment, and was transferred to another team.<\/p>\n Latif and Juandi then each ran parallel illegal operations until their arrests in 2018.<\/p>\n Latif started a new syndicate by recruiting Goh, who planned the illegal loadings with him and recruited two other team members.<\/p>\n The illegal loadings began with the brokering of a deal to sell misappropriated fuel to vessels.<\/p>\n Using various methods to evade detection, the rogue employees worked together to route the gas oil from tanks onto the vessels.<\/p>\n They carefully planned routes in the pipelines to bypass meters, and activated pumps at the same time to mask the theft.<\/p>\n Where the meters could not be avoided, they temporarily tampered with them so that the illegal outflow would not be recorded.<\/p>\n Bribes were paid to bunker surveyors to not accurately report the amount of cargo loaded onto the vessels.<\/p>\n In early 2015,\u00a0Shell\u00a0began observing significant unidentified oil loss at Pulau Bukom.<\/p>\n After investigations, the company made a police report on Aug 1, 2017.<\/p>\n Between 2014 and 2018, Juandi\u2019s team siphoned more than 203,000\u00a0tonnes of gas oil, while Latif\u2019s group misappropriated more than 153,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n Deputy Public Prosecutor Kiera Yu sought a jail term of between 21 years and 22\u00bd<\/b> years for Goh.<\/p>\n She argued that he had a slightly lower culpability than Latif, but played a similar role to that of Muzaffar\u00a0Ali Khan Muhamad Akram and Koh Choon Wei. <\/p>\n