A 44 year-old female Singaporean, Hasanah Binte Abdullah, was convicted on 30 August 2017 for money laundering offences. Another accomplice, a 30 year-old female Singaporean, Siti Zubaidah Binte A Johabar Ali, was earlier convicted on 28 August 2017 for a similar charge.
Through extensive investigations, the Commercial Affairs Department uncovered 40 fraudulent wire transfers amounting to approximately SGD 416,000 received in bank accounts controlled by Hasanah Binte Abdullah. These fraudulent wire transfers were from victims of various commercial crimes including advanced fee fraud, email fraud, parcel scams, love scams, and charity scams.
Investigations revealed that sometime in September 2013, Hasanah Binte Abdullah had befriended a Nigerian known to her as “Richard Osze”, who instructed her to receive money in her bank accounts on his behalf, and thereafter withdraw the money and hand physical cash to him in Malaysia. Despite having been informed by the Police to desist from dealing with money from unknown and/or dubious sources, Hasanah Binte Abdullah chose to partake in such arrangement with Richard Osze for the commission. For each transaction Hasanah Binte Abdullah helped to receive, she obtained a commission of about 5%.
Investigations also revealed that Hasanah Binte Abdullah subsequently enlisted the help of Siti Zubaidah Binte A Johabar Ali to use the latter’s bank accounts to receive the fraudulent wire transfers at the instructions of Richard Osze.
On 28 August 2017, Siti Zubaidah Binte A Johabar Ali was convicted for one count of assisting another person to retain benefits from criminal conduct under Section 44 of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, Chapter 65A.
On 30 August 2017, Hasanah Binte Abdullah was convicted and sentenced to 29 months’ imprisonment for two counts of assisting another person to retain benefits from criminal conduct and two counts of removing benefits from criminal conduct from jurisdiction under Section 44 and 47(1)(b) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, Chapter 65A, and two counts of dishonestly receiving stolen property under Section 411(1) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. 19 other charges of money laundering, dishonestly receiving stolen property and failure to make a cash declaration report when moving cash out of Singapore were taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.
Any person convicted of a money laundering offence shall be punished with an imprisonment term not exceeding 10 years, and may also be liable to a fine not exceeding SGD 500,000. Any person convicted of dishonestly receiving stolen property shall be punished with an imprisonment term which may extend to 5 years, and may also be liable to a fine.
The Police would like to take this opportunity to remind the public not to give any personal particulars or bank account details to unfamiliar persons, and be wary of requests to receive and transfer monies, as such acts may be facilitating money laundering. If you receive or are asked to receive funds from unknown and/or dubious sources, please lodge a police report immediately, and do not deal with the funds.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
30 August 2017 @ 6:05 PM