A 38-year-old Singaporean woman will be charged under the Payment Services Act 2019, for carrying on a business of providing a payment service without a licence.
Investigations revealed that in May 2020, the woman had allegedly provided domestic money transfer services by receiving fraudulent fund transfers on 13 different occasions amounting to more than $4,000 in her bank account, for the purpose of carrying out payment transactions to a local bank account. The woman claimed that she responded to a job advertisement online and was employed as an account personnel to perform bank transfers. She was promised a daily commission for assisting in providing payment services using her bank account. The origin of these funds was ascertained to be proceeds of crime from victims of online scams.
The woman does not have a licence to carry on a business of providing any type of payment service in Singapore, nor was she an exempt payment service provider under the Payment Services Act 2019.
The woman will be charged in Court on 19 January 2021. 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 3 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 individual 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
18 January 2021 @ 6:30 PM