Billion-dollar money laundering case: Suspect gets 12 new charges including lying to Iras, MOM
Su Haijin is one of 10 accused people in a billion-dollar money laundering case in Singapore.
DAVINA THAM
Published April 1, 2024
Updated April 1, 2024
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SINGAPORE — A man who jumped off a balcony during a raid to arrest suspects linked to a billion-dollar money laundering probe received 12 new charges on Monday (April 1).
This brings the total number of charges that Su Haijin faces to 14, and the total amount in suspected criminal proceeds that he allegedly held to about S$3.8 million.
Cypriot national Su, 41, was initially set to plead guilty this week on Thursday. Both prosecution and defence confirmed that his plea will go ahead as planned.
He initially faced two charges of resisting arrest on Aug 15, 2023, and possessing about S$4.06 million in benefits from illegal remote gambling offences in a UOB account around August 2023.
On Monday, the second charge was amended to one of possessing nearly S$2.4 million that is reasonably suspected to be benefits from illegal remote gambling offences, and failing to account satisfactorily for how he came by this money.
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This amount was allegedly held through an OCBC account belonging to Yihao Cyber Technologies, and received in 10 transactions between Jan 15 and Oct 12, 2021.
The amended charge carries a less severe penalty than that of Su's initial charge of possessing criminal benefits.
Most of Su's new charges revolve around Yihao Cyber Technologies.
He was given three charges of allegedly conspiring with Wang Junjie to use Yihao's forged financial statements to:
- Open a corporate bank account with DBS on April 13, 2022
- Apply to join OCBC's premier private client segment in 2022
- Open a corporate bank account with UOB in or around May 2022
Two of his charges are for possessing benefits reasonably suspected to be illegal remote gambling offences in or around August 2023, amounting to about S$439,000 in Yihao's DBS account and about S$1 million in Yihao's UOB account.
Four more charges are for conspiring with Wang to lie to authorities about Yihao's revenue, gross profits and trade receivables.
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These false representations were allegedly made to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) for the financial years 2019, 2020 and 2021, and to the Manpower Ministry (MOM) for the financial year 2021.
Su also has three charges of helping two women apply for or renew a work pass by making false statements to the Controller of Work Passes.
In 2021 and 2023, he allegedly instructed Wu Qin to sign and declare in a form submitted to the controller that she would be employed by Culbert Management as chairman, when he knew this was false.
In 2023, he allegedly did the same in instructing Chen Yanyan to apply for a work pass with a form falsely stating she would be employed by Culbert Management as a personal assistant.
Su, who was denied bail, appeared via video-link on Monday and followed proceedings through a Mandarin court interpreter.
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The penalties for resisting arrest are a jail term of up to a year, a fine, or both.
For possessing property reasonably suspected of being the benefits of criminal conduct and failing to account satisfactorily how they came by this property, an offender can be jailed for up to three years, fined up to S$150,000, or both.
If guilty of fraudulently using the forged documents with the banks, Su could be jailed for up to four years, fined, or both.
If convicted of making the false representations to Iras and MOM, Su could be jailed for up to 20 years, fined, or both.
The penalties for making a false statement to the Controller of Work Passes are a jail term of up to two years, a fine of up to S$20,000 or both. CNA
