Billion-dollar money laundering case: Two former bank employees, ex-driver to be charged in court

SINGAPORE: Three men, aged between 26 and 41, will be charged in court on Thursday (Aug 15) with various offences linked to one of the country’s largest money laundering cases. 
Two of them are former bank relationship managers who counted convicted criminals Su Baolin, Vang Shuiming and Lin Baoying among their clients – three of the 10 foreigners who were convicted and jailed for laundering illicit funds and other offences. 
The remaining individual was a personal driver to fugitive Su Binghai, who is currently wanted by the police for his involvement in alleged money laundering offences.
“Their cases relate to a group of individuals who were convicted of laundering the proceeds of overseas organised crime activities in Singapore, and others who are suspected of the same but have not returned to Singapore to face investigations since the probe started,” the police said on Wednesday. 
One of Singapore’s largest money laundering probes began in 2021 with tip-offs on a group of foreigners using forged documents to launder money in the country. This led to the simultaneous arrests of nine men and one woman – with origins in China – in moneyed estates around the island in August 2023.
The last of the 10 offenders was sentenced in June. All of them have since served their jail terms and have been deported. 
The first bank employee, a 26-year-old Chinese national, was a relationship manager employed by a foreign bank incorporated in Singapore.
His clients included Su Baolin and Vang. 
Investigations found that sometime in or around December 2020, the man allegedly abetted Su Baolin by making a false loan agreement to cheat another bank about the source of the deposit made into Su Baolin’s bank account. 
He was also allegedly in possession of S$481,678 (US$366,500) of cash collected on behalf of Su Baolin on Dec 15, 2020, for which he has been unable to provide a satisfactory account of its provenance, said the police. 
Between Apr 19, 2021 and Apr 25, 2021, the man allegedly forged a loan document to cheat the bank in which he was working as to the source of Vang’s funds, thereby allowing the deposit of SS$999,980 into Vang’s bank account on Mar 29, 2021.
He faces a total of ten charges. 
The second bank employee, a 35-year-old Chinese national, was a relationship manager employed by the local branch of a foreign-incorporated bank whose clients included Lin. 
He had allegedly received various alterations of a forged tax document from Lin before submitting the final version to the bank as supporting document to facilitate the opening of a bank account in Switzerland. 
He faces one charge. 
The remaining individual, a 41-year-old Singaporean, was the personal driver to Su Binghai, who is currently wanted by the police.
He faces two charges for allegedly lying to the police that Su Binghai did not leave any valuables in his possession, and for obstructing the course of justice by disposing of four vehicles belonging to Su Binghai.
Director of the Commercial Affairs Department, David Chew, said: “We take a very serious view of the laundering of criminal proceeds through our financial system. Banks as important gatekeepers of our financial system have compliance systems in place to detect and turn away criminal funds.”
“We rely on the integrity of bankers in general and relationship managers in particular, as the interface between clients and the banks, to ensure this. Those who help clients circumvent their financial institutions’ due diligence processes or who help clients forge documents to conceal the true nature of their assets, must be dealt with robustly under our laws.”