12 months' jail for Thai woman who acquired criminal proceeds
By Claire Huang | Posted: 05 February 2013 1633 hrs
SINGAPORE: A Thai woman has been sentenced to 12 months' jail for acquiring criminal benefits of S$452,100.
Thanyarat Jarutraveevit, 35, was convicted of three counts of acquiring criminal proceeds, one count of attempting to acquire such benefits and one count of removing another person's criminal benefits.
The prosecution proceeded on two of the charges.
Thanyarat was asked in July 2012 by two acquaintances of her boyfriend to collect money from people in Singapore and bring it back to them in Malaysia.
She agreed to do so as she was compensated for the travel expenses and received S$500 for the job.
In July 2012, an email was sent from the account of a Mr Alvaro Bermudez to his bank, Credit Suisse AG, instructing the bank to transfer money to the bank accounts of a Michael Ong Thiam Hock and a Ramachadran Rajendran in Singapore.
Mr Bermudez and the bank are based in Zurich, Switzerland.
A week after the transfers, totalling US$218,000 were made, Credit Suisse established that the email payment instruction wasn't made by Mr Bermudez.
The money transferred was thus deemed "stolen property".
On 24 July in 2012, Mr Ong withdrew S$98,600 and handed it to Thanyarat, while Mr Rajendran handed over S$170,000 to the accused the next day.
So far, S$76,472 seized from the accused has been returned to the victim.
- CNA/ck
