A Singapore Airlines ( SIA ) Engineering Company engineer’s bids to maintain and repair the aircraft for his employer as an external contractor were successful.
Leong Siew Pui, 69, made the proposals in the name of Aittix Engineering, an coworker’s business, in which he did not hold any location.
He deceived his firm about the origin of the services rendered by no declaring this agreement to SIA Engineering Company.
Leong admitted guilt on Tuesday ( Jan 28 ) to three counts of lying to the Singaporean flag carrier’s maintenance company, SIA Engineering Company.
When he is sentenced on February 18th, three similar charges may be taken into account.
Gino Hardial Singh, Leong’s attorney, claimed that this was not a common event in which a business is duped because no-one performs the necessary work or performs shoddy work.
He claimed that Leong’s work on the website check body at SIA Engineering Company, which is used to evaluate the performance of aircraft engines, was unconcerned.
In regards to the works Leong performed in 2017, one of which the prosecution filed, the prosecutors also claimed that there was no proof the plays were inoperable.
Leong was accused of doing the crimes “because he thought he knew much,” according to District Judge Eugene Teo.
RETIREMENT PLAN
After he retired, Leong came up with the idea to work as an additional company and offer maintenance and repair services for SIA Engineering Company.
He had observed that outside contractors frequently needed two to three days for servicing inspections while working as an architectural supervisor, but he could never have allowed them due to functional constraints.
Because he was aware of the exact time frame for the maintenance and repair work, he believed he was more qualified than outside companies to do so.
He spoke with Mr. Alex Tan Han Wen, the owner of Aittix, who at the moment offered producing investing companies, around the Taiwanese New Year that season.
Leong inquired if Mr. Tan could use Aittix to submit contracts for an SIA Engineering Company open tender.
Mr. Tan agreed because he felt Aittix would benefit from having reputable clients like the SIA Engineering Company despite not having any prior experience with maintenance projects.
Aittix was chosen to be a vendor of SIA Engineering Company in that year’s open tender. From 2014 to 2017, the business then awarded Aittix a number of contracts.
As a result, Aittix issued SIA Engineering Company a total of 43 invoices over this period.
Leong replaced Aittix with all the invoiced services, with the exception of two invoices for sound absorbing panel repair. He claimed that he had intended to perform these works later.
Investigations were unable to establish whether Leong used secret information to compile the winning bids.
Leong therefore defrauded SIA Engineering Company into paying Aittix S$ 338, 517 across all six charges.  ,
The crimes were found when the police learned about a suspected fraud case in January 2019.
Leong earned a profit of S$ 63, 737 ( US$ 47, 100 ) from the arrangement, which has been surrendered to the police. Additionally, he fully refunded the S$ 38, 984 for the two invoices for non-delivery.
ARGUMENTS ON SENTENCE
Jason Chua, Deputy Public Prosecutor, requested nine to eleven months in jail.
” While there is no evidence that the works done by the accused were defective or unsatisfactory, the accused made wrongful gain in the form of secret profits”, he argued.
Additionally, Mr. Chua noted that Leong’s crimes involved premeditution and occurred over a long period of time.
Defence lawyer Mr Singh asked for five months ‘ imprisonment, pointing to Leong’s remorse in his plea of guilt, and his voluntary disgorgement and restitution of the money.
He claimed that Leong now made money by working as a gaffner and doing odd manual tasks.
Leong had almost 20 years of experience with SIA Engineering Company at the time of the crimes.
Leong said,” Leong does not take any risks or take shortcuts when it comes to inspecting and maintaining aircraft engines,” adding that his client “has never compromised on safety.”
Additionally, according to Mr. Singh, Leong was given the task of overseeing the operation of the engine test cell and only had two full-time employees.
His repeated requests for SIA Engineering Company to hire more staff “fell on deaf ears,” the lawyer said.” He was placed under enormous pressure from his employers.
Leong allegedly hired Aittix to hire more workers in order to circumvent overtime and working conditions.
According to Mr. Singh, he also employed one full-time employee under the direction of Aittix who would be permanently stationed at the test cell to handle the growing demand and workload.
The attorney claimed that Aittix participated in price comparison exercises and offered work for a fair price, and that the completed projects never received audit reports.
The penalty for cheating is a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.