A 38-year-old Singaporean woman was convicted on 23 November 2021 of an offence under the Payment Services Act 2019, for carrying on a business of providing a payment service without a licence. The woman pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced to three weeks’ imprisonment.
Investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department revealed that between 22 May 2020 and 23 May 2020, the woman had carried on a business of providing a payment service (i.e. domestic money transfer service). She received 13 fund transfers amounting to $4,855 in her bank account, and made seven outward transfers amounting to $3,700 to another local bank account. These transactions were done on the instructions of an unknown person who promised her a daily salary of $200, after she responded to a job advertisement on Facebook for a part-time data entry job.
Out of the $4,855 deposited into her bank account, the sum of $2,605 was established to be proceeds of crime transferred by four victims of e-commerce cheating scams.
The woman did not have a licence to carry on a business of providing any type of payment service in Singapore and she was not an exempt payment service provider under the Payment Services Act 2019.For carrying on a business of providing payment services without a licence under Section 5(1) punishable under Section 5(3)(a) of the Payment Services Act 2019, the offence carries 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 the public 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 attractive salaries to perform relatively easy 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 criminal 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.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
26 November 2021 @ 4:30 PM