Indian-origin woman in Singapore faces jail

Singapore, June 22: A 57-year-old Indian-origin Singaporean woman, accused of being involved in the largest bribery case in the history of the US Navy, may face a jail term of more than three years, a media report said on Friday.

Sharon Rachael Gursh-aran Kaur, who was a lead contract specialist for the US Navy, was allegedly involved in the $35-million ‘Fat Leonard’ scandal, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of several senior officers of the US Navy, including a rear admiral, The Straits Times reported.

Kaur, was based at the US Navy’s Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Centre in Singapore. The court heard on Wednesday that she received more than SGD 130,000 in bribes from Leonard

SHARON RACHAEL Gursharan Kaur, who was a lead contract specialist for the US Navy, was allegedly involved in the $35-million ‘Fat Leonard’ scandal

Glenn Francis, the Malaysian chief executive of Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA) — a subsidiary of Singapore-based Glenn Marine Group — which provides goods and services for American ships in at least a dozen countries in Asia.

Francis, also known to several US Navy personnel as “Fat Leonard”, had allegedly paid Kaur bribes between 2006 and 2011 as a reward for giving him information about the US Navy that was not available to the public. She would disclose procurement-sensitive data and price information of his firm’s competitors. He was able to prepare more competitive bids to secure lucrative contracts with the US Navy.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Jiang Ke-Yue told the court that the information she leaked was linked to 16 US Navy contracts. GDMA submitted bids for 14 of them and was awarded 11 contracts worth some $48 million in total.

The prosecution made its submissions to the court and asked for Kaur to be handed over a jail term of at least three years and seven months, the paper said.

She pleaded guilty to three charges and one count of dealing with the benefits of her criminal activities.