Two Men in Singapore Face More Than 400 Charges for Recruitment Scam

The Commercial Affairs Division and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) charged two Singaporean men for running the sham employment businesses that fraudulently collected fees from foreign job seekers.

Terry Tan-Soo I-Hse, 39 years old, and Clarence Lim Jun Yao, 30 years old, face a total of 442 charges for using three scam companies that took fees from more than 300 foreign job seekers for jobs that did not exist.

Tan-Soo was the Director of hiring agency Asia Recruit (also known as Alliance Recruit), while Lim was the Director of Asiajobmart and UUBR International (also known as Connectsia). The police revealed: “Investigations revealed that Tan-Soo and Lim submitted a total of 449 work pass applications to MOM. 445 of them were rejected.”

The MOM has banned Lim, Asiajobmart and UUBR from hiring any new foreign workers and renewing any work passes. Asia Recruit’s licence has also been suspended.

Both men face charges under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act as well as charges for fraudulent trading under the Companies Act, while Tan-Soo faces additional charges under the Employment Agencies Act. They may be sentenced to up to seven years’ jail, a fine of up to $20,000, or both, per charge.

This is not the first case for the recruitment industry in Singapore. The men, who allegedly committed the offences in 2015 and 2016, were charged in court and are out on bail of $110,000 each. In a similar case from September 2017, the MOM charged Aik Heng Contracts and Services director Poh Kwi Ko with the illegal importation of labour involving 10 foreign workers, and the collection of kickbacks amounting to about $156,000.

Hopefully, the number of scam projects will be reduced soon by the work of governments and the implementation of new technologies that exclude the possibilities of giving false information about company/job seeker.

For instance, Aworker is the platform that helps to find the most suitable company and job position based on your psycho-type, professional skills, and achievements. Decentralization provides the best opportunities for creating a new professional ecosystem. It makes it easier to pay people for their actions in the Aworker platform: with the power of smart contracts payments for acquaintance’s recommendation or coming to the job interview by yourself are automatic. Also, all information is securely stored, and all the actions are transparent which exclude the chances of getting trapped with expensive yet unnecessary obligations.