Lee was also sentenced to 12 months’ jail for under-declaring the values of vehicles when registering them with LTA, allowing him to underpay the vehicles’ additional registration fee.
CNA has contacted LTA and Singapore Customs to clarify if Lee will serve the 112 months’ jail in default of paying the fine concurrently with the 12-month sentence or in addition to that sentence.
Lee pleaded guilty to three amalgamated charges for providing incorrect information related to the value of 976 motor vehicles.
“Four similar amalgamated charges involving another 1,505 motor vehicles were taken into consideration during sentencing,” said the authorities.
“These incorrect declarations resulted in a total additional registration fee shortfall of S$39,130,302.”
The court ordered Lee to repay the outstanding amount to LTA.
Sim, the employee, was found complicit in Lee’s scheme since he assisted in preparing the documents to be submitted to Customs. He also handled the remittance of excess payments to Crownston’s overseas suppliers for the imported cars.
“Sim admitted that Lee had told him that the remittance of balance payments were excess payments meant for Crownston’s overseas suppliers, as the actual values of the imported cars had been under-declared to Customs,” said the authorities.
The 41-year-old was fined S$6.8 million on Apr 8 last year. He pleaded guilty to four charges of abetting the fraudulent evasion of duty amounting to about S$2,598,078.
The charges corresponded to the duties for 1,120 imported motor vehicles.
Another eight charges for abetting the fraudulent evasion of GST and incorrect declaration were taken into consideration during his sentencing.
As Sim did not pay the fine, he is currently serving 72 months’ imprisonment in default, said the authorities.
Any person convicted of involvement in the fraudulent evasion of any duty or GST on imported goods can be fined up to 20 times the amount of duty and GST evaded and/or imprisoned for up to two years.
Anyone who gives incorrect information in relation to any matter affecting the amount of additional registration fee can be fined up to S$10,000 or face up to six months’ jail, with the maximum penalty doubled for amalgamated charges.