A 51-year-old ICA officer admitted that during his work as a staff sergeant with the Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) in Singapore he was receiving sexual services from women in exchange of immigration favours.
The accused, Chin Peng Sum faced 10 charges on Friday, including two counts of obstructing justice, three of breaching the Official Secrets Act and two breaches of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Another 23 counts will be taken into consideration during sentencing.
The man was working with ICA since 1998 and he was assigned to conduct the operation and arrest immigration offenders. He met three women, Wang Chenghong, Zhu Shirong and Tang Yuanyuan between 2016 and 2017 all of them were Chinese nationals and they were arrested for immigration-related offences.
As per reports, Chin contacted those women and told them that he could help them to recommend the extension of the Special Passes which would allow them to stay in Singapore.
Then in 2017, the former ICA official contacted Zhu for message service and after the woman agreed, both of them went to her Geylang residence, where they had sex. But, when Chin offered $100, she said the service was for free. A month later, both met again to have sex and this time Chin did not offer any money.
In the same year, he called Wang for massage services and it also led to sexual services at her Geylang residence. Chin asked for a 50 per cent discount of Wang's advertised rate but she declined the payment. The same incident again took place a month later and this time Chin did not offer money.
During the offences, Chin knew that he was receiving sexual pleasure for free because of his position in ICA. Between March and February 2017, in three occasions, when he received information about impending raids from his superiors, he passed those details to the trio to let them avoid the raids.
On March 31, 2017, Zhu was arrested for vice activities and then the officials came to know the Chin's involvement. During the court hearing, the Deputy Public Prosecutor Low Hui Min said that Chin wanted to show that he was protecting those women.
After Zhu's arrest Chin was interviewed by ICA and after that he told Wang to delete the incriminatory messages against him and the woman did so.
However, Chin is now suspended and will present in court on January 2, 2019, for his sentencing.
