Singapore Seizes S$6 Bln In Criminal And Money Laundering Activities Since 2019
SINGAPORE, June 26 (Bernama) -- Singapore has seized S$6 billion (S$1=US$0.7) linked to criminal and money laundering activities between January 2019 and June 2024.
The Home Affairs Ministry (MHA), Finance Ministry (MOF) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said of that amount, S$416 million have been returned to victims and S$1 billion have been forfeited to the state.
“The large bulk of the remainder is linked to still ongoing investigations or court proceedings,” they said in a joint statement Wednesday.
Singapore on Wednesday published its first ever National Asset Recovery Strategy, which sets out the republic’s comprehensive approach towards the recovery of illicit funds and assets from criminals, and the forfeiture of these assets or their return to victims.
The strategy is part of Singapore’s continued efforts to enhance its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime.
The strategy focuses on four pillars, namely to detect suspicious and criminal activities by tracing the illicit funds; deprive criminals of their ill-gotten proceeds through prompt seizure and confiscation; deliver maximum recovery of assets for forfeiture and restitution to victims; and deter criminals from using Singapore to hide, move, or enjoy their illicit assets.
Singapore implements these four pillars through upstream loss prevention efforts, and a whole-of-society approach, as well as strengthened partnerships with international counterparts, and community and private sector stakeholders, in asset recovery and loss prevention efforts.
“For instance, the Singapore Police Force’s Anti-Scam Command and the local banks sent more than 16,700 SMS alerts from March to April 2024 to warn more than 12,500 bank customers, whom the authorities had detected were in the process of being scammed,” the statement said.
This resulted in the disruption of more than 3,000 scams and averted losses of over S$100 million.
In Singapore, a sizeable proportion of the money laundering cases are transnational in nature, involving foreign predicate offences and foreign crime syndicates which employ sophisticated and complex methods, including layering tactics and digital technologies, to conceal the cross border movement of their illicit funds.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong at the opening of the Financial Action Task Force Plenary Meeting on Wednesday morning said Singapore has made asset recovery a priority in its national anti-money laundering regime.
“Singapore takes a strong approach against financial crime. But zero tolerance does not mean zero occurrence.
“So we adopt a risk-based approach. We focus on understanding the latest trends and developments in the financial world that can be exploited by criminals, and we develop tools and legal frameworks that will allow us to detect suspicious individuals and activities early,” he said.
Wong said in August last year, the country’s law enforcement agencies conducted one of the largest anti-money laundering operations in the world and seized more than S$3 billion in assets from 27 suspects.
The 10 suspects have since been convicted within a year of their arrest and around S$940 million of their assets have been forfeited to the State, which is more than 90 per cent of what was seized from them.
“Investigations are ongoing against the 17 other suspects who are currently overseas,” he added.
Wong said the experience and lessons obtained from this operation will be used to strengthen Singapore’s regulations and enforcement.
-- BERNAMA
