SINGAPORE, Sept 30 — When Zhang Shaopeng arrived in Singapore from China, his colleagues told him that he needed a doctor’s memorandum to show he was fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to dine in at food-and-beverage outlets here.
Zhang, who had been fully vaccinated in his home country, instead used a photo-editing mobile application to insert his own name into his colleague’s doctor’s memo, which had been issued by Raffles Medical Group.
He showed it to a restaurant supervisor at Orchard Central mall, but she grew suspicious and kicked the group out.
Zhang, 30, was jailed for three weeks on Wednesday (Sept 29) for his actions earlier this month. The China national will be released soon as he has been in remand since he was charged on Sept 15.
He pleaded guilty to a single charge of forgery, which carries a maximum jail sentence of four years and a fine.
He was one of the first to be charged here with faking vaccination credentials to gain entry into an eatery.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Jun Chong had sought three to four weeks’ jail, while Zhang’s lawyers — Cory Wong and Josephus Tan from Invictus Law Corporation — asked for a high fine or not more than two weeks’ jail.
The defence counsels argued that he did not know how serious the offence was but has realised his mistake now. However, Senior District Judge Hamzah Moosa ruled that the custodial threshold had clearly been crossed.
Forged memo shortly after entering singapore
The court heard that Zhang and two colleagues — Cheng Lin, 32, and Chen Shuiwei, 25, both also from China — were required to attend a solar power exhibition on Sept 21 in the United States for work.
The three of them decided to travel to Singapore first and stay here for more than 14 days before heading to the US.
This was because at the time, the US had suspended entries by foreigners who had been in China for 14 days before arriving in the US.
Zhang arrived in Singapore on Aug 27, a few days after the other two. All tested negative after undergoing a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and were quarantined at a hotel along Shenton Way.
Before Zhang arrived, Lin and Chen had gone to a Raffles Medical clinic on Aug 25 to validate their overseas Covid-19 vaccination certificates and undergo serology tests to see if they have antibodies against the coronavirus.
They later received a doctor’s memo certifying that they were fully vaccinated with positive Covid-19 serology.
The day after Zhang came to Singapore, he met his colleagues in the hotel to smoke and chat and they told him about the need for a doctor’s memo to dine in at restaurants.
Zhang’s colleagues also told him that they had gotten their memos and suggested he do the same. Lin then showed Zhang a photograph of his own memo on his mobile phone.
The next day, Zhang asked the other man to send the photo to him. He then used the Snapseed photo-editing app to remove Lin’s name from the photo, inserted his own, and saved it in his phone.
Serial numbers on memos were the same
Zhang soon moved to Orchard Point Serviced Apartments because he felt the hotel was rather expensive. He checked out of the hotel on Sept 1 and the others helped him to move his luggage to the other location.
To show his appreciation, Zhang took them to Tanuki Raw Bar and Restaurant at Orchard Central mall for a meal.
Janell Wong Corilla, the restaurant supervisor, asked them to check in with via the SafeEntry system and pointed to a sign stating that all members of a group needed to verify their vaccination status using the TraceTogether app.
The app indicated that the trio were not vaccinated, so Wong asked for proof that they were fully vaccinated.
Zhang explained that they had been vaccinated in China with the Sinovac vaccine and showed her a photograph of his vaccination certificate. She then requested that he provide a document in English recognised by the Singapore Government.
Chen showed Wong her doctor’s memo and the vaccination sticker on her passport issued by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. Lin showed her a photograph of his own memo.
When Wong insisted that Zhang do the same, he showed her the forged memo.
She took photos of Lin’s doctor’s memo and Zhang’s fake one before allowing them into the restaurant.
She then sent the photos to the restaurant's management. The manager soon noticed that the serial numbers for Lin’s and Zhang’s memos were exactly the same.
Suspecting forgery, the management told Wong to ask the trio to leave.
As she did so, she asked them why the serial numbers were the same but Zhang said that he did not know. The food that he ordered was packed for them to take away.
While a service crew member was settling the bill, she asked the group how they had gotten the forged memo, to which Zhang said that their agent in China had prepared everything including the hotel and certificate.
Lin and Chen went to eat at another restaurant, while Zhang went back to his apartment.
The restaurant manager made a police report at about 4pm. Zhang deleted all copies of the photo of Lin’s memo and the forged memo, but a copy of Lin’s memo was later found on Zhang’s iCloud account.
Raffles Medical Group confirmed on Sept 2 that he had not visited its clinic, before he was arrested on Sept 14. — TODAY
