A Singaporean court yesterday convicted a jailed banker of additional offences in a case linked to the international money-laundering scandal involving Malaysia’s state fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
Singaporean Yeo Jiawei (楊家偉), a former wealth manager with Swiss bank BSI, was sentenced to 54 months after admitting charges of money-laundering and cheating.
The jail term will run concurrently with a 30-month sentence for trying to tamper with witnesses involved in the probe into the scandal, which was handed down in December last year and is the longest jail term so far to come from Singapore’s probe.
Allegations that huge sums were misappropriated from 1MDB through money-laundering triggered a corruption scandal that has embroiled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who founded the fund.
He and the fund have consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Yeo’s admission of guilt comes after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) wrapped up a two-year probe into fund flows related to 1MDB.
Prosecutors identified Yeo as a central figure linked to Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho (劉特佐), who has been characterized by US investigators as the controller of a plan to drain billions from 1MDB.
Low, also known as Jho Low, has previously described his role with 1MDB as informal consulting that did not break any laws.
Yeo had referred to Low as “boss” and spent at least one night at his house, according to earlier court proceedings.
Yeo said it was a misunderstanding that he worked for Low.
Passing sentence yesterday, judge Ong Hian Sun (王賢山) said Yeo had taken “considerable effort” to conceal his criminal wrongdoing and had exploited his position for personal gain.
He added that the courts must take an “uncompromising stance” to protect the integrity of Singapore’s financial system.
The convictions related to Yeo’s time at BSI. While there, he was involved in a series of elaborate cross-border transactions involving shell companies and bank accounts belonging to his parents, court documents showed.
Yeo and a colleague made US$466,000 in profit by syphoning off commission that was meant to go to BSI for facilitating the transactions, which were linked to 1MDB and its associated projects.
Yeo accumulated a net worth of S$23.9 million (US$17.3 million) through “secret profits” in the 15 months after he left BSI in June 2014, prosecutors said in an earlier hearing.
Yeo had said the money was earned legitimately.
In mitigation, Yeo’s defense lawyer Derek Kang said his client would never work again in the finance industry and that he would give up profits made from the offences.
The 1MDB scandal has been described by prosecutors as the “largest ever money-laundering case” investigated by Singapore’s white-collar crime unit.
MAS said in March that it has barred seven bankers linked to the case, five of whom, including Yeo, had been convicted of various offences involving 1MDB.
Singapore has imposed a total of S$29.1 million in penalties on eight banks as part of its probes. Credit Suisse Group AG and United Overseas Bank Ltd were among the firms that paid penalties, while BSI and Falcon Private Bank Ltd were also ordered to shut their local operations.
The US and Switzerland have also launched investigations into the 1MDB fund, but only Singapore handed down any convictions so far.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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