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Ex-air force engineer and 2 others charged

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Man faces 251 charges of cheating, corruption under the Official Secrets Act

A former Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) engineer, who had business interests in companies that he recommended as contractors, kept it secret from the RSAF.

Rajkumar Padmanthan, 48, was yesterday charged with cheating, abetment by conspiracy to cheat, corruption and offences under the Official Secrets Act. He faces a total of 251 charges which involved $1.8 million in government contracts.

His alleged co-conspirator, Jeevan Arumugam, 46, owner of Eagle Flight Aviation Services (Efas), is accused of 67 counts of conspiring with him to cheat the Government by dishonestly concealing that Rajkumar had a business interest in Efas.

Court documents say this happened when Rajkumar recommended Efas as a contractor for the RSAF aircraft system repair and maintenance works.

The Government paid about $633,000 to Efas.

A third man, RSAF engineer Sung Way Xiong, 28, faces one charge of corruptly agreeing to accept an unknown amount and future employment from Rajkumar as an inducement to provide him with restricted pricing information.

He is also alleged to have communicated confidential information relating to the moving price of Material Part Numbers which he had access to in RSAF to Rajkumar, who was not authorised to have it.

Rajkumar is accused of cheating the Government 126 times when he was with RSAF and 24 times when he was employed as a technical officer with One Marina Property.

Between 2010 and 2012, he allegedly cheated the Government, in particular the Defence Ministry, on 99 occasions when he recommended Goodwill Aviations System (Gas), controlled and owned by him, as a contractor. The Government paid about $869,000 to Gas for work done.

Another 27 counts state that he deceived the Government by dishonestly concealing when he recommended Duratech Engineering as a contractor, that the firm would subcontract RSAF aircraft system repair and maintenance works to Gas or Efas.

The alleged offences took place between 2010 and 2013.

Between December 2013 and December 2014, he was with One Marina Property when he allegedly concealed the fact that he had an interest in the businesses of Efas and Global Trade Well (GTW) when he recommended them as contractors. The Government paid about $57,000 for repair and maintenance works done by Efas and/or GTW.

Rajkumar said he intends to plead guilty. All three accused will be back in court on Aug 14.

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