Extra jail time for police officer who took bribes from repeat immigration offender

SINGAPORE: A police officer who was convicted of more corruption charges has been sentenced to 34 months’ jail in addition to his original jail term of more than six years. 

Station Inspector Poo Tze Chiang, 47, was also ordered to pay S$36,000 (US$26,700) as a penalty.

The latest sentence comes on top of an earlier sentence, given in August 2024, for shielding people from police action in exchange for bribes. Poo was sentenced to 78 months’ jail then and ordered to pay a penalty of S$32,500 for this set of offences.

He had appealed the conviction and sentence for this earlier set of charges, which were related to corruption and obstruction of justice, but the appeal was dismissed by the High Court in April this year. 

Poo will serve his latest jail term of two years and10 months after his earlier one of six years and six months expires. 

His latest conviction is for obtaining S$36,000 in bribes from co-accused Chen Guangyun to help Chen with his immigration offences. Chen’s sentencing has been fixed for Jul 15. 

Chen, who is from China, entered Singapore on Oct 20, 2014 but overstayed illegally. On Jan 25, 2017, he was convicted of a charge of unlawful overstaying and a charge of reckless harbouring. He was sentenced to jail and caning.

On Jun 7, 2017, after he completed his sentence, he was deported and was banned from entering Singapore.

However, he snuck back by boat and was arrested and charged in 2019. In the same year, Chen met Poo at a drinking session. He told Poo about his offence for entering Singapore illegally and Poo replied that he could help with the case in exchange for money. 

Even after Chen was deported again on May 4, 2020, Poo contacted him to offer help. 

In 2021, while Chen was still in China, he learned that Poo was being investigated for corruption. Chen contacted the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to report his bribes to Poo, confirming that he had paid S$36,000. 

After a trial, Poo was convicted of four counts of graft. One count of cheating Chen was taken into consideration for sentencing. 

This was for cheating Chen into believing that he needed S$10,000 to apply to two unknown government agencies for Chen to be permitted to return to Singapore.