Four charged over modifying food delivery app to let foreigners work illegally

AI generated

SINGAPORE – Four men were charged on July 29 over their alleged involvement in modifying the Foodpanda app to allow foreigners to take on food delivery jobs illegally.

Wong Choon Kiat, 45; Edwin Ling Jun Hao, 28; Ashton Darren Goh, 40; and Desmond Tan Hock Heng, 38, were each handed one charge of using a modified version of the delivery app to commit cheating.

Court documents did not state their specific roles in the operation.

The police had earlier said in a statement on July 28 that the men were arrested after a tip-off from the Ministry of Manpower.

The modified app allowed foreigners to bypass real-time verification checks by uploading a photo of the account owner instead of taking a real-time selfie to log on to the platform.

This enabled unauthorised foreigners to impersonate actual account owners and operate accounts that did not belong to them for illegal work. These users were found to have paid between $50 and $120 a week to use the modified app.

They were also given instructions on how to install and use the modified app to impersonate the actual account owner and accept job assignments via the food delivery platform.

The police said it is illegal for foreigners to enter into platform work arrangements with platform operators or to impersonate local platform workers and perform work using their accounts.

They added that the Manpower Ministry will be investigating the foreigners who allegedly worked illegally as platform workers.

Wong, Ling, Goh and Tan’s cases will be heard again in August.