25 foreigners who used fake certs jailed

By Amelia Tan, The Straits Times, 22 Feb 2014

TWENTY-FIVE foreigners have been jailed between four and 12 weeks for submitting bogus university certificates when applying for jobs here.

The Manpower Ministry (MOM) said in a statement yesterday that the male and female workers have also been barred from working in Singapore.

They were charged on Thursday and all pleaded guilty.

Post by Singapore Ministry of Manpower.

Sixteen are from Myanmar, seven are Indian nationals and two are Filipino. They had worked in Singapore for less than a year and were employed in junior level roles in businesses such as restaurants and shops.

They applied for work passes between November 2012 and last June using fake academic certificates produced in their home countries.

Subsequently, 20 were issued the S Pass and five were given the Employment Pass.

However, MOM checks with certificate-issuing institutions and foreign government departments in November and December last year revealed that the certificates were fake. Their employers will not be punished as investigations showed they were unaware of the wrongdoing.

Under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, anyone who submits fake academic certificates can be fined up to $20,000 and/or jailed for up to two years.

The MOM has convicted 121 foreign workers for submitting fake certificates in the past two years. Most were jailed for up to four weeks and banned from working here in the future.

On Tuesday, 22 Indian nationals were charged with providing false salary information to apply for work passes.

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