Singapore-based F1 tycoon escapes jail, gets fined in gift scandal
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Singapore-based F1 tycoon escapes jail, gets fined in gift scandal")
Singapore-based F1 tycoon escapes jail, gets fined in gift scandal Photograph: (AFP)
Ong faced a maximum punishment of seven years behind bars, but a judge granted him judicial mercy due to his poor health.
Formula 1 and hotel tycoon Ong Beng Seng was slapped with a $23,400 fine for pleading guilty to a charge connected to a gift scandal that shocked his country, Singapore, last year. The 79-year-old billionaire admitted to a criminal offence by helping ex-transport minister Subramaniam Iswaran cover up evidence while the latter was being interrogated for corruption. Ong purchased expensive gifts, including an all-inclusive paid trip with a private jet ride to Iswaran while they engaged in official business. He, however, faced a maximum punishment of seven years behind bars, but a judge granted him judicial mercy due to his poor health.
As he suffers from multiple myeloma, a rare bone marrow cancer, the judge Lee Lit Chang at this sentencing on Friday (Aug 15) said that an appropriate sentence for him would be three months in jail, but it could also ‘endanger his life’.
A gifting scandal that shocked Singapore
It all began in December 2022, when Ong invited Iswaran on a trip to Qatar, promising to handle all his expenses, including hotel accommodation and travelling on Ong’s private jet. Singapore’s ex-transport minister accepted the order but informed Ong about his travel plan to Singapore on a specific date, with the billionaire responding to arrange a commercial flight for him.
Iswaran, however, only asked Ong’s company to bill him for the business class ticket back home, worth S$5,700, after he found out that Singapore’s corruption bureau was looking into that flight as part of an investigation into a separate case involving Ong’s close associates.
Meanwhile, considering Singapore ministers are not supposed to keep gifts unless they pay the market value of the gift to the government, they must also declare anything they receive from people they are doing business with.
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Later, in a shocking revelation after the two men were arrested in July 2023, the charge sheets revealed that Iswaran had received over S$403,000 worth of flights, hotels, musical and grand prix tickets from Ong. To make matters interesting, Iswaran, at the time of the offences, was in the government’s F1 steering committee and the chief negotiator on F1-related business matters.
