A 24-year-old Singaporean woman was convicted on 28 January 2021 under the Payment Services Act 2019, for carrying on a business of providing payment services without a licence. She is the first person to be convicted for the offence.
Investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department revealed that on 27 and 28 February 2020, the woman had provided a digital payment token service by receiving at least 13 fraudulent fund transfers amounting to S$3,350 in her bank account, used these monies to purchase Bitcoin and transferred the Bitcoin to multiple Bitcoin wallets. These transactions were done on the instruction of an unknown person in return for a 10% commission. The woman claimed that she took up a part-time job online. Her role was to receive monies in her bank account and deposit them into Bitcoin machines. These monies deposited in her bank account turned out 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 types of payment services in Singapore and is not an exempt payment service provider under the Payment Service Act 2019.
On 28 January 2021, the woman was convicted and sentenced to four weeks' imprisonment for carrying on a business of providing payment services without a licence under Section 5(1) punishable under Section 5(3) of the Payment Services Act 2019. For individuals, the offence is punishable with a fine of up to $125,000 or imprisonment for a term of up to three years or both.
The Police would like to caution that scammers are recruiting people to transfer stolen money on their behalf. Scammers may advertise jobs that allow you to work from home and offer unreasonably high salaries to perform tasks like using your personal bank account to receive and transfer money. Legitimate companies will not require you to utilise your personal bank account to receive money on their behalf. If the money that you receive and transfer is stolen money or linked to crimes, you may be investigated and liable to be charged for committing a money laundering offence. You should reject requests to use your personal bank accounts to receive and transfer money for others.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Anyone with information on such scams may call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. For enquiries relating to the Payment Services Act 2019, members of the public may contact the Monetary Authority of Singapore at webmaster@mas.gov.sg.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
29 January 2021 @ 11:10 PM