Director of car leasing firm jailed over $11m shortfall in duty, GST and registration fees

SINGAPORE – To pay less customs duty and GST on imported vehicles, the director of a car leasing company instructed his overseas suppliers to issue invoices with lower values.

He also provided incorrect vehicle values to the Land Transport Authority (LTA), resulting in a shortfall in Additional Registration Fees (ARF).

The offences led to a combined shortfall of more than $11 million.

His misdeeds were uncovered when customs authorities detected discrepancies in the vehicle values declared for duty and GST assessment.

On Sept 30, Mah Chee Wern was sentenced to 23 weeks’ jail and fined more than $4.8 million after he pleaded guilty to 18 charges under the Customs Act.

As he is unable to pay the fine, Mah will spend another 47 months and 37 weeks in jail.

This means he will be jailed for more than five years in total.

The 48-year-old also admitted to two other charges of giving incorrect information about the amount of ARF payable to LTA.

Another 55 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that Mah was the director of Karkaunsl Leasing, a company that purchased and imported cars from overseas suppliers before selling them to retailers in Singapore.

He managed the company’s operations, liaised with overseas car suppliers, submitted declaration forms and paid the suppliers.

In 2017, he instructed the overseas suppliers to issue invoices with values lower than the transaction prices that he had determined.

These invoices were submitted to Singapore Customs for their assessment and evaluation of the imported cars.

Mah then instructed declaring agents to apply for the necessary permits based on the suppressed values.

Customs subsequently approved the import of cars at the lower transaction values, which led to lower payable excise duties.

This allowed Mah to increase his profit margins when he resold the vehicles locally. He earned about $800 for every Japanese domestic model sold, and $1,500 per continental car.

Between January 2017 and February 2022, the company imported 855 cars with a total under-declared value of about $26.4 million. The cars were worth more than $32 million.

Mah evaded more than $1.16 million in excise duties, court documents showed.

Sometime in November 2020, he became acquainted with the director of Hybrid Vehicles Singapore (HVS), identified as ‘C’ in court documents.

C engaged Karkaunsl to handle the importation of cars and the submission of documents on behalf of HVS.

He also assigned another director, Su May, to liaise with Mah.

Once orders were placed, Su May or the overseas suppliers would send Mah invoices for the submission of documents.

These invoices contained suppressed values that were determined by Su May’s boss.

Mah submitted the documentation, applied for duty payment permits, and remitted payment to the overseas suppliers in amounts higher than the invoice values.

He would propose alternative figures if he found the invoice values too low.

Mah also took instructions from Su May before purchasing foreign currency to pay the suppliers.

After she approved the exchange rate and transferred the money to him, he remitted it to the suppliers.

He then issued local invoices in Singapore dollars from Karkaunsl to HVS.

The amounts reflected the actual value of the cars, his service fees and the duty and GST payable based on the suppressed values declared to customs.

Su May would then pay Karkaunsl the stipulated amounts.

She had instructed Mah not to transfer the amounts stated in the overseas suppliers’ invoices, as these were lower than the actual values of the cars.

Despite this, Mah used the invoices to support his submissions to Customs for the assessment and valuation of cars imported by HVS through Karkaunsl.

This resulted in Customs approving the import of cars at a lower value, causing Mah to underpay excise duty and GST.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, Mah was involved in importing 11 cars – worth more than $828,000 – with supressed values under this arrangement.

He evaded more than $45,000 in excise duties and more than $19,000 in GST.

Su May was fined $418,300 in July 2025 after pleading guilty to the fraudulent evasion of duty and GST involving 34 vehicles, with more than $72,000 in duty and GST evaded.

The court also heard that between February 2017 and April 2024, Mah’s company had imported 889 vehicles and incorrectly declared the Open Market Values (OMV) to customs.

The incorrect data was transferred into LTA’s Vehicle Registration and Licensing System, affecting the calculation of ARF.

Investigations found that out of the 889 imported vehicles, 876 were registered with LTA, while 13 were not.

The incorrect OMV declarations made by Mah resulted in a shortfall of more than $9.9 million in ARF.

Those convicted of fraudulently evading duty or GST can be fined up to 20 times the amount of duty or GST evaded.

An offender can also be jailed for up to 12 months.

Under the Road Traffic Act, any person who gives incorrect information about any matter affecting the amount of ARF chargeable can be fined up to $10,000, or jailed up to six months.