A 61-year-old man was sentenced to 19 months' imprisonment and fined S$239,065 on Thursday, August 28, for money laundering offences.
Nguyen Duy Khiem ("Khiem"), a Vietnamese and American dual citizenship holder, was convicted of three counts of money laundering, including two counts under Section 47AA of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act ("CDSA") and one count under Section 47(3) of the CDSA.
Khiem made agreements with a number of foreign call centers that were pitching phony investments to prospective investors between 2018 and 2019. By means of these agreements, Khiem helped the call centers receive investor fraud proceeds and move them to foreign bank accounts.
He established a number of businesses in Singapore and carried out these fraudulent schemes using their corporate bank accounts.
According to police, he also made arrangements for two Vietnamese women, Hoang Dinh Phuong Thao and Hoang Thi Thuy Hang, to establish Kaloca Asia Pte Ltd ("Kaloca") and Wellington York Partners Pte Ltd ("Wellington") in Singapore, respectively, in 2019.
Additionally, Khiem made arrangements for Thao and Hang to open Singaporean bank accounts for these businesses. Although Thao and Hang were the companies' directors and authorized signatories, Khiem was in charge of all operations and bank accounts, so they had no real control.
The Singapore Police Force (SPF), said, "Between December 2019 and October 2020, the bank accounts of Kaloca and Wellington received a total of US$457,500 and over US$7.8 million, respectively, all derived from overseas investment scams."
"Investigations revealed that transactions made from Kaloca and Wellington's bank accounts were layered to avoid raising suspicion. False invoices were generated to justify these transactions to financial institutions. Khiem received commissions of more than US$ 1 million from his arrangements with the call centers," added SPF.
Anyone found guilty of violating Section 47AA of the CDSA or Section 55 of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act 1992 ("CDSA 1992") faces a maximum fine of S$150,000, a maximum sentence of three years in prison, or both.
