Woman jailed 4 weeks for bribing immigration officer to expedite PR Pass

According to a report by The Straits Times, a Malaysian woman named Fenny Tey Hui Nee pleaded guilty to a charge of bribing an Immigration Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officer to fast-track her application for permanent residency in Singapore. She gave the then-officer $1,500.

Court documents showed that was currently a permanent resident at 25 years old.

What happened to Fenny Tey Hui Nee?

The same report said that she was sentenced to four weeks in jail on June 29. There were other charges involved, and the court used these to arrive at her sentence.

Court records showed that Tey wanted to expedite her permanent residency application after finding out she was pregnant. She had planned to stop working for a year after the birth of her child at the time. Since she would be unable to apply for permanent residency if she quit her job, she wanted to make the process go faster and decided to bribe an ICA customer service officer.

How did she fast-track her PR pass?

According to the same report, she had tried to engage the services of a company named Immigration Solutions (Singapore). A sales consultatnt of the said company named Sharon Loo Wai Woon said that the company could apply on her behalf for a fee of $5,000. Since this amount was too steep for Tey, she instead contacted Loo directly and asked if the woman could undertake her case on a personal basis for a lower fee.

Loo then said she had a cousin working in the ICA, and this person specialized in assisting people in getting their PR pass. With a fee of $1,500, Loo said that Tey’s application could be expedited.

Tey also received the contact details of Loo’s mother (named Lucy Teo), who was working as a customer service officer in ICA.

In September 2017, Tey and Teo met twice. Teo assured Tey that she could help the latter, as she was familiar with the documentary requirements, and that she had helped many foreigners apply for PR status successfully. Teo also said that if Tey would engage her services, the chance of getting approved with be given the highest chance of success.

After Tey agreed, she met with Teo twice more, in September 2017 again and the following month. She paid for the services on these dates, $750 each time.

Teo did come through, and Tey received her PR status on November 2018. The former helped Tey fill out the necessary forms and handed her a file that contained all the papers needed for the PR application.

Cases of officers still pending

According to the same report, the ICA said that Teo has not been part of the office since December 19, 2018. Teo faces another charge under the Computer Misues Act. Teo and Loo have also been charged with conspiracy to receive a brine from Tey. These cases are also still pending.

If Tey had been given the maximum sentence, she could have been jailed for five years and her fines reach $100,000.