SINGAPORE: A Chinese national who converted a terrace house into a dormitory for foreign workers and tried to bribe an enforcement officer after he was found out was sentenced to four weeks’ jail and fined S$56,620.
Li Ying, 28, had partitioned the house at Jalan Kemajuan to create more bed spaces, with plans of subletting the spaces to foreign workers.
Between November 2017 and February 2018, he collected S$15,620 in rent from as many as 21 foreign workers, said the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in a joint press statement.
He had rented the property for two years under a tenancy agreement in April 2017.
At the time of his offence, Li was employed as a clerk at Intertek Testing Services (Singapore).
He did not hold a valid work pass or contract of service that allowed him to engage in subletting activities, authorities said.
Li was fined S$50,620 for converting a private residential property into a dormitory without planning permission and an additional S$6,000 for conducting subletting activities without a valid work pass.
The terrace house is located along Jalan Kemajuan. (Photo: Urban Redevelopment Authority, Ministry of Manpower, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau)
Acting on information received, auxiliary police officers engaged by the URA raided the house on Feb 24, 2018, finding 15 foreign workers living in it. This exceeded the occupancy cap of six unrelated persons for private residential properties.
During the raid, Li attempted to bribe an enforcement officer from Certis Cisco, offering him S$100 to not report the number of occupants to URA. The officer turned the bribe down and referred the case to CPIB.
For trying to bribe the officer, Li was sentenced to four weeks’ jail.
