Sisters admit to helping fraudsters launder close to $1 million from victims of scams
Two Singaporean sisters helped fraudsters launder almost $1 million from victims of job, investment and dating scams.
One of them, Nur Syafiqah Mohamad Awal, 20, dishonestly kept around $200,000 of it and spent some on clothing and staycations.
Syafiqah pleaded guilty on Tuesday (March 8) to five charges of money laundering. Her sister, Nur Atiqah Mohamad Awal, 19, also pleaded guilty on the same day to one similar charge.
The sisters were part of a scam which involved at least 39 victims who reported to the police that they had lost money to swindlers from December 2020 to May last year, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin.
The victims would come across job offers on social media platforms or SMS and were asked to buy items online for which they will be paid commission. In other cases, the scammers would befriend victims on dating apps and later ask them to transfer large sums of money for various reasons.
The court heard that their mother, Ms Siti Aidah Abdullah, met two men known only as Raymond and Kelvin on the online dating app Tagged sometime between November and December 2020.
They asked Ms Siti to open bank accounts in her name and to send the linked debit cards to them, but she did not know how to do so and asked her daughters for help.
Syafiqah and Atiqah directly contacted Raymond and Kelvin and helped them apply for and send debit cards to Malaysian addresses in exchange for payment. They deleted their WhatsApp conversation histories at the request of the swindlers.
Court documents said that Syafiqah also helped to perform transactions through bank accounts in her control and created new bank accounts for the scammers.
"(Syafiqah and Atiqah) had reasonable grounds to believe that these bank accounts were being used for the facilitation of benefits from criminal conduct," said DPP Bin in separate statements on the sisters.
"(They) knew that (their) actions were illicit but continued to do so anyway as she received payment for doing so."
Using accounts opened by Syafiqah, the fraudsters would transact up to some $344,000 at a time and paid her $2,050 in total.
On one occasion, Syafiqah dishonestly kept around $200,000 that did not belong to her. She spent $9,000 for personal expenses like clothing and staycations.
When Kelvin and Raymond barred her from working for them, Syafiqah turned to another contact, Mohamed Yusri Arepen, who was involved in a similar money laundering ploy, and helped him to launder around $111,500 for $300 in payment.
The sisters helped to launder almost $1 million across several transactions, according to court documents. It was not mentioned if any of the money had been recovered.
Atiqah profited at least $200for helping the swindlers.
The judge called for probation and reformative training suitability reports and reminded the sisters to cooperate with the probation officers.
They were remanded and will return to court next month.
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