Monday December 3, 2012

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/12/3/asia/12403766&sec=asia

A SMALL but growing number of people living in Singapore has been helping overseas money-laundering syndicates move millions of dollars to the city-state, police have discovered.

These “money mules” are mostly men who get to know the fraudsters online and end up acting as middlemen, allowing money to move through their bank accounts.

In 52 cases reported to the police from January to September this year, more than S$16mil (RM40mil) and about 100 mules were involved, according to the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).

The transactions ranged mostly between US$18,000 (RM54,000) and US$150,000 (RM450,000), although the biggest was almost US$430,000 (RM1.29mil).

So far, seven people have been arrested and charged in court.

The CAD, the main white-collar crime-busting agency, told The Sunday Times it was alerted after foreign banks reported that their customers’ funds had been moved fraudulently to Singapore.

Typically, funds are first moved from foreign bank accounts in places like Switzerland, Dubai and the United States without the account-holders’ knowledge.

The fund transfers are done by the fraudsters via e-mail requests, and it is not known how these e-mail addresses were compromised.

Investigations have shown that the fraudsters are mostly Caucasians who start by befriending people on social networking sites like tagged.com, planetromeo.com, badoo.com and Facebook.

They do not rush, but spend anything between a few weeks and a few months chatting and establishing a relationship with their Singapore friends. Along the way, they may claim to have plans to set up their family in Singapore or have plans to visit.

At some point they ask for help, saying they need to send money to a country where they do not have a bank account.

According to the CAD, the Singaporeans involved are mostly men aged 40 to 60, and earning S$3,000 (RM7,500) or less.

They allow the fraudsters to transfer funds into their Singapore bank accounts and are then told to put the money into another account overseas, or withdraw the cash and hand it to someone else in Singapore, usually another mule. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network