SINGAPORE – A man who worked at different food and beverage (F&B) firms duped multiple suppliers into delivering to him around $1 million worth of products.

After receiving the goods, which were mainly food items, on 30-day credit terms, Zhuo Song Yuan sold them off in bulk to restaurants in Chinatown.

He used his ill-gotten gains to pay off his outstanding debts to moneylenders.

The 44-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to five years and four months’ jail on Wednesday. He had pleaded guilty to 13 charges, including multiple counts of cheating involving more than $554,000.

Another 34 charges, including those linked to the remaining amount, were considered during sentencing.

He committed the bulk of his offences in 2020 and 2021, pretending to be working for two F&B companies when he was no longer in their employ.

He also pretended to be an employee of a third company, even though he never worked for it.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Yeow Xuan said: “The accused had no qualms fleecing suppliers of large sums of food products at one go, having made individual orders typically amounting to more than $20,000 each time.

“Little to no restitution has been made by the accused to the respective victims.”

Zhuo was aware that the suppliers would extend purchases on credit terms of 30 days to established buyers with good track records, such as his two former employers, the Dapaidang Group and First Gourmet.

This means such buyers were able to make payments up to 30 days after receiving the goods.

These credit terms were not offered to individual purchasers who had to pay upon receiving the goods, said the DPP.

The Dapaidang Group hired Zhuo as a purchasing manager in October 2019. After the company found out he made unauthorised purchases, purportedly on its behalf, to benefit from the 30-day credit terms, he was fired in July 2020.

Despite this, he continued posing as its employee to buy items such as fruit, rice and oil from suppliers.

The same thing happened with First Gourmet, which was part of a group of companies including Delizio Catering.

Zhuo was hired in May 2021 as an assistant procurement manager in First Gourmet and fired three months later over similar reasons as at his previous company.

He had pretended to be working for Delizio to buy items such as eggs, rice and milk from suppliers.

Zhuo also pretended to be an employee of a third firm called Sen Hong Hai Singapore, even though he had never worked for it.

He then committed similar offences to dupe suppliers into delivering food products to him.

The DPP said the suppliers eventually billed Dapaidang, Delizio and Sen Song Hai for the items Zhuo had ordered.

His offences finally came to light and multiple police reports were made against him.

He could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined for each count of cheating.