Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has recently conducted an enforcement operation against a syndicate suspected of recruiting foreign workers for illegal employment.

In a statement on MOM’s website, the Ministry revealed the island-wide enforcement operation took place on 26-27 July 2016, lasting more than 48 hours, across several locations including offices, residential units and construction sites.

A total of 44 people, comprising six alleged members of the syndicate and 38 foreign workers, were arrested during the enforcement operation. Items seized included work permit cards, name lists of workers and SingPass tokens (online account management for access to Singapore government e-services). Investigations are currently ongoing.

In its statement, MOM explains syndicates that illegally bring in foreign labour would typically set up shell hiring “fall guys” as directors of these shell companies, and misuse their SingPass accounts to make fraudulent work pass applications. 

They obtain the quota to employ foreign workers using “phantom workers”, while the fall guys usually have no knowledge of what the company does. The syndicates then collect large amounts of kickbacks from the foreign workers, profiting illegally in the process.

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