SINGAPORE: Despite being told by the police and the victim of a scam not to proceed further, a woman persisted in helping her online boyfriend launder about S$89,800 (US$67,000) in scam proceeds.
Tan Liping also tried to transfer about S$86,450 to bank accounts in Malaysia, but succeeded only in remitting about S$24,500.
She was sentenced to 16 months’ jail on Monday (Nov 27), after pleading guilty to one count of money laundering.
A second charge of obstructing justice by deleting her WhatsApp chat history with her “boyfriend” was taken into consideration.
The court heard that Tan, a 35-year-old Singaporean, got to know a man named “Ivan” on an online dating application called Tantan in August 2022.
In October 2022, Tan allowed her boyfriend to use her UOB bank account to receive a sum of S$27,000.
The sum was then transferred to a Malaysian bank account to a person Tan knew as Neomi, a purported employee of Ivan’s.
The police looked into the case and issued Tan a letter of advisory on Nov 22, 2022 to stop associating with Ivan.
They also told Tan not to allow her bank account to be used to receive money from unknown sources or to make outgoing transfers to unknown accounts. Tan was also informed that it was a criminal offence to do so.
Despite the police warning, Tan continued to have an online relationship with Ivan.
In January this year, Tan told Ivan that her UOB bank account had been “unfrozen” and that she could use it.
On Jan 16, Ivan sent a message to Tan, asking her to check if she had received money in her bank account.
Tan checked and confirmed that she had received more than S$33,000 from a company named Pinnovation.
Ivan told Tan that he had received this money from Pinnovation to buy kitchenware for his renovation project.
Despite the police’s earlier warning, Tan believed Ivan.
In fact, the 54-year-old Singaporean director of Pinnovation had been cheated into transferring money to Tan’s account, believing it was for a legitimate business purpose.
In total, he transferred Tan S$89,753.
Ivan instructed Tan to withdraw S$28,300 and transfer the remainder to another bank account to prevent the funds from being frozen.
Tan did as instructed. She tried to transfer S$30,000 to a bank account in Malaysia, but was unsuccessful.
A DBS employee called Tan to tell her that the bank had stopped the transfer as they suspected the transaction was involved in a scam.
Tan then Googled the company Pinnovation and obtained the victim’s number. She called him to verify his reason for transferring S$89,753 to Tan’s account.
The victim was confused when Tan told him that she was not a staff member of Luxoft, the company he was doing business with and thought he was paying in exchange for IT services.
The victim said he would perform some checks at this end and call Tan again. Tan then sent the victim a video clip of herself holding her NRIC to verify that she was the holder of her bank account.
Meanwhile, Tan updated Ivan that the transfer of S$30,000 was unsuccessful and was instructed to use a remittance company to send the money to Malaysia.
On Jan 19, the victim called Tan and told her to return his money. He told her that it would be a crime for her to use his money, but Tan chose to ignore him.
That same day, Tan went to the remittance company suggested by Ivan and made cash transfers.
In total, she remitted S$86,450 to Malaysian bank accounts. She spent an additional S$2,059.05 of the remaining cash, which amounted to about S$3,300.
When the police called Tan in for investigations, she again updated Ivan, who instructed her to delete all the WhatsApp messages between them. She complied, and was arrested on Aug 23.
The prosecutor said Tan had tried several ways to transfer the funds out of Singapore and facilitated the movement of money despite being warned by the police.
She also “went to great lengths” by going to several locations in Singapore to assist Ivan and his supposed employee Neomi, said the prosecutor.
“The accused had reasonable grounds to believe that she was facilitating the control of another person’s benefits of criminal conduct, but still agreed to the arrangement to please Ivan as she considered him as her online boyfriend and for financial gain,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Santhra Aiyyasamy.