Singapore’s three local banks, namely DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and UOB and two casinos at Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands received appreciation plaques from Director of Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) in a commendation ceremony held at the Police Cantonment Complex today.
In 2018, the Suspicious Transaction Reporting Office (STRO), Singapore’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) received 32,660 suspicious transaction reports (STRs), 383,769 cash transaction reports and 78,822 cash movement reports. The banking sector contributed 50% of the STRs filed and a significant percentage of these reports was contributed by the three local banks. The two casinos contributed about 20% of the total STRs filed.
STRO analyses the STRs received and shares financial intelligence with the law enforcement agencies in Singapore. Financial intelligence is crucial to investigations as it provides leads to commence or support investigations and can be used to develop further intelligence, identify emerging crime trends or detect possible crimes.
Through the ceremony today, CAD commended the banks and casinos for filing STRs that led to, or supported investigations and seizures of more than SGD 25 million. The STRs were filed for a variety of offences – they included cheating, falsification of accounts and criminal breach of trust under the Penal Code; money laundering under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act; evasion of income taxes and goods and services tax under the Income Tax Act, and offences relating to United Nations Act. The persons in these investigations have been prosecuted. Those convicted have been sentenced to imprisonment terms ranging from 6 weeks to 9.5 years or have been ordered to pay taxes, penalties and fines of more than SGD 2 million. These significant positive outcomes would not have been possible without the efforts of our banking and casino reporting entities.
Director of CAD, also Singapore’s Head of FIU, Mr David Chew said, “We would like to compliment the banks and casinos for their vigilance and commitment in detecting and reporting suspicious transactions. We also want to recognise their strong partnership with the Suspicious Transaction Reporting Office, in short STRO, to support Singapore’s anti-money laundering efforts and to combat the financing of terrorism. STRO looks forward to working closely with all reporting entities to improve the quality of Suspicious Transaction Reports filed across the different sectors and strengthen STRO’s analytic capabilities.”
The Police would like to remind members of public that “where a person knows or has reasonable grounds to suspect that any property (a) in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, represents the proceeds of; (b) was used in connection with; or (c) is intended to be used in connection with, any act which may constitute drug dealing or criminal conduct, as the case may be, and the information or matter on which the knowledge or suspicion is based came to his attention in the course of his trade, profession, business or employment, he shall disclose the knowledge or suspicion or the information or other matter on which that knowledge or suspicion is based to a Suspicious Transaction Reporting Officer as soon as is reasonably practicable after it comes to his attention. Any person who contravenes the above shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction (a) if the person is an individual, to a fine not exceeding $250,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or to both; or (b) if the person is not an individual, to a fine not exceeding $500,000.”
(From left to right): OCBC, UOB, DBS, MBS and RWS received the Community Partnership Award from Director of CAD, Mr David Chew.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
21 October 2019 @ 10:45 AM