Woman gets four weeks' jail for trying to bribe police

A 29-year-old woman from Eastern Europe was on Thursday (May 11) sentenced to four weeks’ jail for trying to bribe the police into not arresting her, after she was caught for suspected illegal sexual services at Swissotel Stamford hotel.

Natalia Belousova, from Moldova, was last month charged in court with one count of corruptly offering the bribe to three police officers, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said in a press release on Thursday.

On the afternoon of April 11, Assistant Superintendent of Police Chan Wai Hoong, Station Inspector Ng Bak Guan and Corporal Yau Kwai Yung were conducting anti-vice operations along Stamford Road when they checked on the woman.

During the check, Belousova repeatedly offered the officers “money and gifts” so as to get them to release her from police custody.

She did this even though she was warned that it is an offence to bribe police officers in Singapore.

The officers rejected her offer and arrested her for attempting to bribe them, and referred her case to the CPIB for investigations.

She was also investigated for her suspected involvement in vice activities under the provisions of the Women’s Charter.

It is not uncommon for police officers to be offered bribes in the course of their work.

In April last year, during an anti-vice operation on Middle Road, a woman tried to bribe an officer with S$10,000 and ended up getting arrested.

In July 2015, police investigating a case of a drunk passenger, who refused to alight from a taxi, later arrested the man for disorderly behaviour and for insulting public servants.

On the way back to the police station, the man offered a sum of S$50 to the officers and tried to introduce them to paid sexual services, in order to get them to release him. The officers rejected the bribes.

That same month, it was reported that a South Korean woman was jailed two months for trying to bribe a police officer after she was nabbed for an immigration offence. She made an offer of S$1,550 in exchange for her release from police custody.

In 2014, a 26-year-old woman was also nabbed when she tried to bribe three police officers with some S$2,400, after she was caught during an anti-vice raid on a residential unit in Sembawang.
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The CPIB reminds the public that it is an offence to bribe, or attempt to bribe public officers in Singapore.
If convicted of a corruption offence, a person can be fined up to S$100,000 or be jailed up to five years, or both.