On 9 September 2021, Wei Hongtao (“Wei”), a 54-year-old Chinese national was convicted and sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment and a fine of $70,000 for two counts of assisting another to retain benefits from criminal conduct under Section 44(1)(a) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (“CDSA”) and one count of carrying on an unlicensed remittance business under Section 6(1) of the now repealed Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses Act [1].
Wei admitted to entering into arrangements with a co-accused person to receive and transfer criminal proceeds. Sometime in November 2017, Wei was offered commissions in return for using a corporate bank account to receive monies for a third party and thereafter remit the money to China. As Wei did not have any corporate bank account, he enlisted the help of a co-accused person to use the corporate bank accounts of the latter’s company in return for a share of the commission.
At all material times, Wei had suspicions about the monies he was helping to receive, suspecting that the arrangements were made to evade corporate taxes overseas. Despite these suspicions, he entered into arrangements with the co-accused to help to receive and transfer the monies for the benefit of the third party, having reasonable grounds to believe that the third party had engaged in criminal conduct, and by these arrangements, he had facilitated the retention of benefits of criminal conduct of the third party.
Separately in January 2018, Wei and the co-accused person also agreed to use the latter’s corporate bank accounts to assist another acquaintance of Wei to remit money to China in return for a share of commission. Wei was aware that the company did not possess any valid remittance licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
As a result of Wei’s arrangements with the co-accused person, the corporate bank accounts of the co-accused person received and remitted funds amounting to about USD 2.5 million to various bank accounts in China. Approximately SGD 456,202 of these monies received in the corporate bank accounts are traced to victims of fraud.
Court proceedings against the co-accused are ongoing.
Singapore does not tolerate the misuse of its financial system to launder the benefits of crime and offenders will be dealt with firmly in accordance with the law.
The offence of assisting another to retain or control benefits from criminal conduct under Section 44 of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act carries a fine not exceeding $500,000 and/or a jail term not exceeding 10 years. The offence of carrying on an unlicensed remittance business under Section 8 of the Payment Service Act carries a fine not exceeding $125,000 and/or a jail term not exceeding three years.
[1] As the offence was committed before January 2020, the offence of carrying on an unlicensed remittance business falls under section 6(1)(a) of the Money-Changing & Remittance Businesses Act, which has since been repealed in January 2020 with the enactment of the Payment Services Act.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
17 September 2021 @ 5:10 PM