34 months' jail for ex-cop over $36k in bribes; earlier sentenced in 2024 for another graft case
Poo Tze Chiang arriving at the State Courts on Feb 28. The former police office rwill start serving his latest sentence after completing his earlier one. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
34 months' jail for ex-cop over $36k in bribes; earlier sentenced in 2024 for another graft case
SINGAPORE - A former police officer was sentenced to two years and 10 months' jail on June 16 after he received $36,000 in bribes.
Poo Tze Chiang, 47, was also ordered to pay a penalty of $36,000 – the amount of bribes involved – and will have to spend an additional 15 weeks behind bars if he fails to fork out this amount.
In 2024, he was sentenced to 6½ years' jail after receiving $32,500 in bribes in unrelated offences.
For this earlier case, he was also ordered to pay a penalty of $32,500 and would have to spend an additional 13 weeks and seven days behind bars in default.
On June 16, the court heard that he will start serving his latest sentence after completing his earlier one.
Defence lawyer K. Jayakumar Naidu told The Straits Times that his client is no longer a police officer.
Poo, who was a station inspector with the Singapore Police Force's Secret Societies Branch during both graft cases, was suspended in December 2020.
In the current case, the Singaporean had received the $36,000 over seven months from Chinese national Chen Guangyun, 39, in exchange for promising to help the latter avoid prosecution over immigration-related offences.
Poo failed to deliver on these promises, and Chen was convicted for his immigration offences in 2020.
Following a trial, District Judge John Ng convicted each man of four counts of graft on Feb 28.
Chen is expected to be sentenced in July.
In earlier proceedings, the court heard that he had initially entered Singapore lawfully on Oct 20, 2014 but overstayed.
On Jan 25, 2017, he was convicted of offences including overstaying before he was sentenced to six months' jail and three strokes of the cane.
After serving his sentence, he was deported in June that year and banned from entering Singapore.
Deputy public prosecutors David Menon and Bryan Wong had stated in court documents that Chen later entered Singapore illegally by boat and officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority arrested him.
Chen was charged in court again with immigration-related offences on June 8, 2019.
Court documents stated that Chen and Poo first met each other during a drinking session some time in or around 2019, and they maintained a casual acquaintance.
Poo later told Chen that he was a police officer. After that, Chen told Poo that he had a pending case for entering Singapore illegally.
The DPPs said that Poo told Chen that he could help the Chinese national with his ongoing case and lessen any punishment that he might face.
Poo also asked Chen to pay $8,000 in exchange for his help, and the latter agreed.
The prosecutors told Judge Ng that Chen handed Poo the amount in cash in or around July 2019.
About a month later, Poo informed Chen that he could make him a police informant, which would allow the Chinese national to continue staying in Singapore after serving his sentence for his immigration-related offences.
The prosecutors added that Poo also told Chen that he would do so only if the latter agreed to pay him $3,000 per month.
The DPPs said that Chen later gave Poo a total of $18,000 between August 2019 and January 2020.
In fact, Chen never provided Poo with any information.
Chen later handed him another $10,000 but all these did nothing to alleviate his legal woes.
The charges against Chen were maintained, and on March 30, 2020, he pleaded guilty to an offence of entering Singapore without a valid pass.
He was sentenced to 12 weeks' jail and four strokes of the cane before he was deported on May 4, 2020.
Chen was in China in early 2021 when he learnt that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) was investigating Poo for unrelated graft offences.
Chen then contacted the CPIB to report that he had paid bribes to Poo.
The DPPs said that Chen was 'still desperate to work in Singapore' and returned to the country illegally in or around September 2022.
Police officers later arrested him in or around April 2023 over his involvement in a fight.
In his earlier corruption case, Poo had repeatedly helped two men evade arrest and received the $32,500 in bribes from the pair. Poo had committed these offences in 2019 and 2020.
Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times' court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
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