Any individual convicted of serious casino fraud in Singapore will face a jail term of up to seven years after Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon set out detailed sentencing guidelines last week.
The guidelines formed part of a judgement handed down by Chief Justice Menon after a 41-year-old man, Vladislav Logachev, appealed against the severity of a 45-month prison sentence for “cheating at play” as part of a Russian syndicate targeting Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa. His appeal was based upon comparisons with shorter sentences handed down for similar crimes in other jurisdictions.
Noting the absence of any “reliable reference points” for sentencing such crimes in Singapore, Chief Justice Menon used his judgement to outline new sentencing guidelines for cases of casino fraud including a list of relevant sentencing considerations and a clear sentencing framework for such offences.
The guidelines call for each individual case to first be assessed based on established “offence-specific factors” – such as the amount cheated, involvement of a syndicate, degree of planning and level of sophistication – and “offender-specific factors” such as remorse, cooperation with authorities and whether or not the accused entered a guilty plea.
Assessment of the “offence-specific factors” is designed to establish the harm caused by the offence which can then be categorized as either slight, moderate or severe. Likewise, culpability will be determined by the “offender-specific factors” and categorized as low, medium or high.
Sentencing will then be applied on a sliding scale with lesser crimes earning a fine or up to one year in prison. Those found to have high culpability and severe harm will be jailed for between five and seven years.
Explaining his methodology, Chief Justice Menon said that the “steps described thus far would allow a sentencing court to arrive at a sentence for each individual charge,” adding that, “In cases where an offender has been convicted of multiple charges, the [next step] is to consider the need to make further adjustments to take into account the totality principle.”
The new guidelines were quickly put into practice on Friday with Logachev successfully having his 45-month sentence reduced to 38 months despite Chief Justice Menon rejecting his appeal.
Logachev was one of three members of a Russian syndicate to travel to Singapore in March 2016 where they targeted certain slot machines using smartphone devices to record play patterns. That information would then be analyzed and decoded, enabling the syndicate to predict with a fair degree of accuracy the future outcomes of play on those machines. Using this system, Logachev and his accomplices won more than SG$100,000 from six machines at Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Manila between 5 and 8 May 2016.
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