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A 33-year-old man will be charged on 4 December 2025 for allegedly carrying on a business of providing cross-border money transfer services without a valid payment services licence under Section 5(1) of the Payment Services Act 2019.

The man was previously a director of a local company, which has since been struck off by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority on 4 March 2024.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the man had opened an account with Wise Asia Pacific Pte Ltd (“Wise”) under the company’s name, for the purpose of “overseas remittance”. He was purportedly engaged in the buying and selling of cryptocurrency, primarily USDT, and had advertised his services on cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance and Huobi. Interested buyers would transfer fiat currency to the company’s Wise account. Between 10 May and 17 June 2022, the company’s Wise account received about GBP 1.4 million from overseas Wise accounts. The man would then transfer these funds to his personal bank account, before transferring them to other local bank accounts as payments for the purchase of USDT from other cryptocurrency sellers. The man did not attempt to establish the source of these funds, and at least GBP 75,050 were subsequently established to be proceeds of crime transferred by two victims of an impersonation scam in Germany.

The offence of carrying on a business of providing any type of payment service (including cross-border money transfer services) in Singapore without a licence unless he is exempted under the Payment Services Act 2019 carries a fine not exceeding $125,000, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, or both.

The Police will not hesitate to act against any individual or entity involved in providing unlicensed cross-border money transfer services. Members of the public are strongly advised to use financial institutions or payment service providers licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore when conducting cross-border money transfers. The Police would like to caution against engaging in unlicensed payment service activities, as unlicensed payment service providers are not regulated and are not subjected to stringent anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing measures.