Indian-Origin Director In Singapore Fined For Faking Export Statements

An Indian-origin former director of a company, which exports scraps to India, was fined SGD 558,000 for faking statements on the export of some SGD 9.72 million worth of goods, to benefit from preferential tariff treatment.

The Singapore Customs said in a statement on Tuesday that Solaiyappan Ramanathan 41, who held a directorship at Feccuni has pleaded guilty to two charges under the Imports and Exports Regulations.

Mr Ramanathan, a Singapore permanent resident, was the sole proprietor of Shakambri Overseas and had applied for 137 preferential certificates of origin (PCOs) for the export of the goods to India.

These certificates offer preferential tariff treatment under the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and ASEAN-India free trade in goods agreement.

According to Singapore's import and export regulations, any person found guilty of providing false statements to the issuing authority to obtain preferential tariff treatments can be jailed for two years, or be fined the higher of a sum of up to SGD 100,000, or three times the value of the goods involved, or both.

Another six charges on him were levied during sentencing, according to a report by The Straits Times newspaper on Wednesday.

Singapore Customs began investigating him after it received information alleging that Feccuni had issued false statements about the country of origin of the scrap metals in the PCOs.

The statement added that Mr Ramanathan whose companies used to trade in scrap metals and other metal products sourced from local and overseas suppliers had falsely stated on the PCOs that they were from Singapore rather than from China, knowing that the preferential tariff would apply only for goods manufactured or wholly obtained in Singapore.

Customs also said that Mr Ramanathan had been approached by a Malaysian to use Feccuni as an exporter for shipping scrap metals to India.

In return, Feccuni would earn a commission for every PCO applied. This was done as buyers in India had expressed interest in the preferential tariff treatment, according to the report by Singapore daily.

While his company was not involved in any transaction between the Malaysian and the Indian buyers, Mr Ramanathan created invoices bearing Feccuni's name and submitted them for PCO applications, the statement said.

This, the statement said, was done to give the impression that the scrap metals sold by Feccuni were of Singapore origin instead of China.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)