Ex-Julius Baer manager charged in $3b money laundering case
On the first anniversary of the arrests of 10 foreigners in Singapore’s largest money laundering case, a former relationship manager at Swiss private bank Julius Baer was hauled to court.
Liu Kai, 35, who was a relationship manager there, was on Aug 15 charged with abetting one of the convicts to use a forged document.
Liu faces one charge of abetting Lin Baoying, the only woman convicted in the case, to submit a forged tax document in November 2020.
Police said Liu allegedly received various alterations of a forged tax document from Lin Baoying before submitting the final version to the bank as a supporting document to facilitate the opening of a bank account in Switzerland.
Two other individuals are scheduled to be charged on Aug 15, including a Singaporean man, 41.
He was the personal driver to businessman Su Binghai, a Chinese national, who fled during the probe and is wanted for his involvement in alleged money laundering offences.
The Singaporean will face two charges – for lying to the police that Su did not leave any valuables in his possession, and for obstructing the course of justice by disposing of four vehicles belonging to his former boss.
On Aug 14, the police said in a statement another Chinese national, a 26-year-old man, is set to face 10 charges. The Straits Times understands this man is Wang Qiming.
He was a former relationship manager at Citibank, whose clients included two of the 10 convicted money launderers, Su Baolin and Vang Shuiming.
In their statement, the police said: “Between April 19, 2021 and April 25, 2021, the 26-year-old man allegedly forged a loan document to cheat the bank in which he was working as to the source of Vang Shuiming’s funds, thereby allowing the deposit of $999,980 into Vang Shuiming’s bank account on March 29, 2021.”
Police said the man had allegedly possessed $481,678 of cash collected on behalf of Su Baolin on Dec 15, 2020, and could not satisfactorily explain where it came from.
In court affidavits produced during the hearings of the 10 foreigners, Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) investigators said they first investigated Wang Qiming over alleged forgery claims before arresting him in October 2021.
His employment was terminated in April 2022, according to an earlier statement by the Wall Street bank.
On Aug 14, Mr. David Chew, director of the CAD, which led the probe, in the police statement said: “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.”
He added that 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 Singapore’s laws.
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