- Joined
- Nov 25, 2011
- Messages
- 29,172
- Points
- 113
S'porean Dev Durai, son of T.T. Durai, wanted in US for insider trading & money laundering
Summarise
The Straits Times (ST) has reported that the son of former National Kidney Foundation head T.T. Durai, Dev Annath Durai, is wanted in the United States in connection with an insider trading probe.
Insider trading network
On Nov. 22, Straits Times reported that Dev Ananth Durai was accused of moving funds for an international criminal network.ST has confirmed that Dev is the son of T.T. Durai, who was accused of excesses during his time as the head of the NKF, and ultimately jailed for deceiving the NKF into paying S$20,000 to an interior designer friend.
An arrest warrant had been issued for him by the District Court of Massachusetts in connection with an insider trading probe, with trades said to have been made between 2018 and 2020.
Dev had reportedly told an unnamed person that he had made a single trade worth US$250,000 (S$327,000).
12 suspects that had lived in Singapore
The probe has identified 12 suspects who were not named but had lived in Singapore.Charges against eight suspects in the suspected criminal network were filed in Boston, Massachusetts, on Nov. 1, including against Dev and one other Singaporean, Ge Zhi.
The Boston Herald, reveals that eight men, including Singaporeans Dev and Ge, were charged with two count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, two counts of securities fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
The group used a Paris-based restaurant to receive laundered funds, and allegedly met in Europe, the Middle East, as well as in Hong Kong and Singapore to coordinate their actions, using code words and burner phones to hide their actions.
Together, they would recruit investment bankers and corporate insiders to supply them with insider information on publicly traded companies in exchange for a profit between 2016 and 2024.
They would then launder the illegally obtained funds through a variety of means, including cash payments, international financial transactions, and shell companies, some of which were located in Singapore.
Joined in 2018
Dev was said to have joined the group in 2018, with a text message from Dev saying that he would give an insider half the profits of an illegal insider trade.U.S. prosecutors said that several suspects had used Dev to make such trades, such as a US$200,000 (S$260,720) trade in 2018, as well as wiring S$90,300 in proceeds from another suspect’s insider trading.
In January 2019, a US$100,000 (S$130,360) transfer to a Hong Kong bank account belonging to another suspect by Dev was denied due to the bank’s money laundering rules.
By October 2019, while the network’s activities were drawing in tens of millions of dollars, Dev was growing worried that he would be suspected of insider trading by banks, suggesting to an accomplice that they should open an online brokerage account.
It was during this period that Dev had won a lawsuit in Nevada regarding a US$115,000 (S$149,910) Richard Mille watch that he had purchased but did not receive.
A press release by the U.S. Justice Department quotes Dev as texting a co-conspirator trader that a member of the network, French and Hong Konger Julien Liu, was a "purely insider trading guy", and that “the deal I made with the guy who gives me the tip [Liu] is that I give him 50% of profit…so you can buy and help me subsidize my payment to him.”
At large
According to the Singapore Police Force, one accomplice, Singaporean Ge Zhi, has been arrested.SPF said that no other individuals other than Ge were currently being investigated in Singapore in relation to the case, and that it was waiting for more information from the U.S. authorities to assess whether any offences might have been committed under Singaporean laws.
ST reports that Dev remains at large.
Top image via The Philippine Star
