SINGAPORE: A former Shell employee was jailed on Thursday (Mar 31) for 29 years for his role in a S$128 million marine fuel heist at the company’s refinery in Singapore.
Juandi Pungot, 45, pleaded guilty last month to 36 charges of criminal breach of trust, laundering his proceeds from criminal conduct and giving bribes. Another 49 charges were considered for sentencing.
He was one of three masterminds in the long-running heist that involved illegally loading bunkers with stolen marine fuel from Pulau Bukom refinery, Shell’s largest petrochemical production and export centre in Asia Pacific.
Juandi reaped at least S$5.6 million in criminal proceeds, the bulk of which he spent on designer watches, vehicles, local and overseas properties and investments, foreign exchange trading and gambling.
These included an investment in The 3 Amigoes restaurant, the purchase of a condominium unit in Bangkok and more than S$500,000 worth of casino chips at the Marina Bay Sands Casino.
The prosecution had sought a jail term of 29 years and 11 months, while the defence argued for 15 years imprisonment.
Delivering the verdict in the High Court, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng said the crimes were “exceptionally serious” and “unprecedented in scale and complexity”.
The syndicate’s activities affected Singapore’s reputation as a commercial hub and “hit at the heart of the bunkering and petrochemical industry, a key component of Singapore’s economy”, added the judge.
In sentencing, Justice Hoo also considered the premeditated and sophisticated nature of the offences, the spectre of organised crime that they raised and the transnational element through the involvement of foreign vessels.
HOW IT STARTED
Juandi joined Shell in 2004 as a process technician. By the time his employment was terminated in December 2017, he was a shore loading officer earning about S$6,000 a month.
The court previously heard that his job scope was primarily to facilitate the transfer of Shell’s petroleum products at Pulau Bukom to client vessels.
Juandi and his colleague Abdul Latif Ibrahim first came up with the idea of stealing marine fuel in 2007, when they were deployed to work in the same team, Team D. They recruited a third “key mastermind”, Muzaffar Ali Khan, sometime after.
From 2008 to 2013, they expanded their criminal enterprise to include two other members of Team D, and increased the number of illegal loadings to about twice monthly.
Juandi and his associates would receive between S$10,000 and S$15,000 for each illegal loading.
Sometime in 2013, after a dispute about how Latif had been distributing the criminal proceeds, he requested a transfer to another team.
The illegal loadings stopped for a period of time after Latif’s departure from Team D, as he had been the primary point of contact with the vessels that bought stolen fuel.
Once Juandi and his associates were able to establish their own contacts, they resumed their illegal loadings. In 2014, they recruited three more members into the syndicate.
They also started targeting vessels with Vietnamese and Greek captains. This was because it was “well-known in the industry that such individuals would readily conduct illegal oil trading”, according to Juandi, as stated in court documents.
In December 2015, they entered an agreement to perform illegal loadings for vessels belonging to Vietnam-based Prime Shipping Corporation.
The syndicate’s activities continued to grow as they struck deals to perform illegal loadings for Sentek vessels and vessels from Sirius Marine in 2017.
The heist came to light on Aug 1, 2017, when a Shell representative made a police report that the company had suffered an unidentified loss of fuel amounting to about S$3 million in April that year.
HOW THE SYNDICATE WORKED
To broker deals for illegal loadings, a shore loading officer in the syndicate would engage the captain of a vessel to make an offer for the sale of stolen marine fuel.
The stolen fuel was sold at a price lower than the prevailing estimated market value at the time, which could be derived from the S&P Global Platts index.
The price varied, but the stolen fuel was often sold at about S$285 per tonne when transferred to bunkers, and US$220 to US$250 when transferred to tankers.
The syndicate adopted various methods to escape detection, according to the prosecution.
They configured the flow of the stolen fuel through carefully planned routes that avoided custody transfer meters.
They also ensured that multiple pumps and tanks were moving at the same time, including unnecessary tank-to-tank transfers, to mask what was going on.
The syndicate would try to hide the theft of fuel by shifting the production of gas oil to the same tank, so that the level in the tank appeared balanced or even increasing.
They also carefully timed their activities against legitimate transfers of purchased fuel, for instance, pausing the legitimate loadings to carry out their illegal loadings.
The syndicate was also able to avoid detection by other colleagues and supervisors due to their “combined in-depth knowledge of Shell’s internal systems and deliberate evasive steps”, said the prosecution.
One of the syndicate members would manipulate the oil control panel to help mask the movement of the stolen fuel.
They would distract a supervisor if necessary, such as by giving excuses about the delays caused by illegal loadings.
They would also tamper with the bunker meter as well as the orientation of the CCTV cameras to ensure their criminal activities were not recorded.
Their activities were coordinated in group chats on their mobile phones, which they would subsequently delete.
They also paid off individuals who caught on to the offences to maintain their silence. This included nearly S$275,000 in bribes to six independent surveyors who signed off on the volumes of fuel transfers to vessels.
Following the discovery of the large-scale misappropriation, Shell invested about S$6 million to improve systems and processes at Pulau Bukom.
These include new and additional custody transfer meters and anti-theft CCTV cameras, development of monitoring software to detect potential theft of gas oil and creation of new permanent positions to strengthen supervision.