A director for Singapore-based employment agency J&Y Recruit Pte Ltd was convicted for making false declarations in work permit applications for migrant workers.

According to the Ministry of Manpower, Chiang Zhi Wei was sentenced to a cumulative term of 11 months’ imprisonment under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act. Following the conviction, Wei was permanently debarred from re-entering the employment agency industry.

The employment agency licence of J&Y Recruit was also suspended during investigations and was not renewed upon its expiry.

From April to July 2019, J&Y Recruit submitted 192 work permit applications for migrant workers to be employed by six companies that were unaware of the applications made on their behalf and had no intention to employ the workers. Wei had intended to secure the workers a work permit before any other employment agency, so that he could then deploy the workers to his clients.

For every successful in-principle approval issued by the Ministry, Wei received fees from the overseas agents that oversaw the workers’ applications. Wei received SGD 50 (USD 37) per successful application, and in total, received SGD 2,000 (USD 1,483) from these agents.

Eventually, none of the workers entered Singapore, as all 192 work permit applications were either rejected or cancelled by the six companies when they found out, or were revoked by the Ministry.