A 29-year-old Malaysian man will be charged in court under the Payment Services Act 2019, for carrying on a business of providing a payment service without a licence.
Investigations revealed that in February 2020, the man had allegedly provided cross-border money transfer services by receiving fraudulent fund transfers on 16 different occasions amounting to more than $4,000 in his bank account for the purpose of carrying out payment transactions to an overseas bank account. Preliminary investigations revealed that the man is believed to have responded to a job advertisement online and was allegedly employed to perform bank transfers. He is believed to be paid commissions for assisting in providing payment services using his bank account. The origin of these funds was established to be proceeds of crime from victims of online scams.
The man does not have a licence to carry on a business of providing any type of payment service in Singapore, nor was he an exempt payment service provider under the Payment Services Act 2019.
The man will be charged in court on 14 December 2020. Under Section 5 of the Payment Services Act 2019, it is an offence for anyone to carry on a business of providing any type of payment service in Singapore without a license unless he is exempted under the Act. For individuals, the offence is punishable with a fine not exceeding $125,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to both.
The Police would like to caution job seekers to be wary of job advertisements that promise the convenience of working from home and being paid unreasonably high salary for relatively easy job responsibilities. Legitimate businesses will not require the job seekers to utilise their own bank accounts to receive monies on the businesses’ behalf. These acts are common ruse used by scammers to have individuals carry out illicit payment transfers on their behalf. To avoid becoming involved in money laundering activities, members of the public should always reject requests by others to use their bank accounts.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
13 December 2020 @ 8:31 PM