Vietnamese performing artiste caught moonlighting at bar, tried to bribe cop with $100

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Jun 16, 2023

A Vietnamese performing artiste who was caught moonlighting at a bar tried to give a policeman a $100 bribe so that the officer would not take enforcement action against her.

The 24-year-old ground response force sergeant rejected the cash, and Dang Mai Huyen Trang was arrested following an operation that took place in the wee hours of Nov 5, 2022.

Trang, 21, pleaded guilty on Friday to a graft charge and was sentenced to a week in jail.

At the time of the offence, she was holding a work permit as a performing artiste with a firm called De Koma that deals with entertainment venues.

Trang was moonlighting at a bar called Fusion Eight at the basement of Fook Hai Building in South Bridge Road on Nov 5, 2022, when the policeman and two of his colleagues conducted an enforcement operation there at around 1.45am.

Court documents did not disclose details about her activities at the bar.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Brian Tan told the court: “Suddenly, someone shouted, ‘Police, run!’ in Vietnamese, and the accused ran out of the pub together with other females.

“(The officers) saw the accused and the other females running out as they were approaching Fusion Eight and the three police officers split up to give chase.”

The policeman caught up with Trang and another Vietnamese woman along a corridor and asked the pair for their identification cards.

Trang then took out a $50 note from her bag and tried to hand it to him, but he rejected the offer. Undeterred, she retrieved another $50 from the bag and offered a total of $100 to him.

The officer turned down her offer for the second time, and she was arrested at around 4.20am.

Trang later told investigators that she knew it was wrong to offer money to police officers and admitted to offering cash to the ground response force sergeant to avoid being arrested.