SINGAPORE — On Tuesday (Aug 15), in one of the biggest money laundering probes in Singapore, the police arrested 10 foreign nationals who were allegedl
who were allegedly involved in laundering money from overseas crimes and forgery.
On its website, MAS says that combating money laundering is one of its priorities and it requires financial institutions here to have sufficiently robust controls to detect and deter such illicit activities. Ms Elke Biechele, chief executive officer of RisikoTek, a specialist software and services provider that detects financial crimes, said that there is a need to crack down on money laundering activities due to its detrimental impacts on the economy.
Integration, which is placing the laundered funds into the economy as legitimate business funds if layering is successful “This enables criminals to move large amounts of dirty money disguised as secondary sales of these luxury items,” he added.Despite Singapore’s strong commitment to fight money laundering, the country continues to be a target for money launderers trying to park their criminal proceeds.
Singapore is also held in high regard internationally, which is the ultimate aim of money laundering. This is so that the funds are seen as “clean” should there be a need to move them elsewhere. “Eventually the investigation or the charges will be dropped as they cannot find the actual culprit.” Banks should also develop and implement policies, as well as procedures and controls to effectively manage and mitigate these risks.
When a bank provides correspondent banking to a foreign bank or financial institution, it must adequately assess the foreign bank and ensure that it has proper anti-money laundering controls in place. To bolster anti-money laundering efforts, MAS has proposed additional measures to strengthen surveillance against money laundering risks to the single family office sector, which is growing rapidly.
Agents must also undertake due diligence measures on their clients if their clients are foreigners, physical cash is used in the property transaction, there is suspicion of money laundering activity, or there are doubts about the customer’s particulars obtained. These prospective buyers have to be screened against the lists of terrorists, terrorist entities and designated individuals.
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