Jail for man who helped childhood friend cheat scam victims, used bank accounts to funnel 'dirty money'

SINGAPORE — Even though he suspected that his childhood friend might be getting funds from illegal activities, Brandon Phua Zhi Wen still agreed to help him out by withdrawing a total of S$40,000 in cash.

The 36-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to 19 months and eight weeks' jail along with a S$1,000 fine on Tuesday (Dec 26).

Phua pleaded guilty to two traffic charges, two charges of acquiring property believed to be the proceeds of criminal conduct, and one charge of obstructing the course of justice.

He was also disqualified from driving for eight years.

Three other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that at the the time of the offences, Phua was self-employed and ran several registered businesses involved in seafood supply, selling motor vehicles and foreign currency exchange.

RECEIVING CRIMINAL BENEFITS

Sometime before May 2018, Phua's childhood friend, Lai Zhendong, asked him for help to receive funds from Lai's purported clients.

Phua was then to withdraw the sums and give them to Lai.

Phua agreed and allowed Lai to transfer money into his bank accounts, which included an OCBC corporate account for a company where Phua was the sole director and majority shareholder.

Phua did so even though he knew Lai's business activities were illegal and he had also suspected that Lai was assisting others to transfer money in order to evade paying taxes.

He also knew that Lai had previously "rented" bank accounts from others by paying them for their automated teller machine (ATM) cards and personal identification numbers connected to their bank accounts.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ong Xin Jie said Phua suspected that Lai was dealing with money obtained from criminal activities.

Phua claimed that in exchange for his assistance, Lai would treat him to alcohol, give him commissions or reduce the amount of debt that he owed Lai.

Phua knew that since 2017, Lai had sometimes dealt with "dirty money" and had ways of laundering such funds.

VICTIMS IN TAIWAN

Between October and November 2018, on eight occasions, a total of S$214,429 was deposited into one of Phua's POSB bank accounts.

This was money received from two victims in Taiwan who believed that they were engaging in oil trading and investment in stocks.

The scam was carried out by a third party. Court documents did not give details of what happened to the money after it landed in Phua's account.

In relation to other ill-gotten gains, sometime in November 2018, Lai gave Phua an ATM card and personal identification number to an OCBC account that belonged to a third party.

Lai then instructed Phua to make multiple withdrawals over a few days and to "withdraw as much money as possible", DPP Ong said.

In total, Phua withdrew S$40,000 in cash from various OCBC ATM machines over 40 occasions between Nov 11 and 20 in 2018.

DELETING EVIDENCE

Investigations into a scam case revealed that Phua had also been involved in assisting scammers to collect two envelopes containing S$300,000 in cash.

On Nov 2, 2020, Phua got his acquaintance Levine Tan to meet with someone named Lau Yong Keng to collect two envelopes with the money inside.

DPP Ong said that earlier in the day, Phua had told Tan the time and location to meet with Lau, along with instructions to produce a specific S$10 note for verification.

These two envelopes were collected by Phua that afternoon. Court documents did not disclose what happened to the money.

Two days later, Tan called Phua to tell him about a visit from officers from the Commercial Affairs Department.

Intending to prevent the police from reviewing the messages between them, Phua instructed Tan to delete their WhatsApp conversation.

This relates to the charge of obstructing the course of justice.

DRIVING WHILE DISQUALIFIED

On the morning of March 2 last year, Phua was driving his van at the junction of MacPherson Road and Jalan Belangkas when he tried to make an unauthorised U-turn.

Senior Staff Sergeant Noor Azhar Zuhri with the Traffic Police spotted Phua making the U-turn and told him to stop his vehicle and provide his personal details.

It was then discovered that Phua had been convicted before of two traffic offences and was disqualified from driving for a period of 48 months from June 10, 2019 to June 9, 2023, DPP Ong said.

Since he was under a disqualification order, Phua's van did not have a valid insurance, which is a requirement under the Motor Vehicles Act.

'OFFENCES WERE PLANNED AND PREMEDITATED'

In seeking a jail term of between 22 and 30 months, DPP Tan Pei Wei told the court that the offences under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes Act were planned and premeditated.

She also argued that these offences were not "one-off" since they were committed over the course of multiple days, which spanned about two-and-a-half weeks.

DPP Tan added that even though Phua suspected that his friend was dealing with money obtained from scams, he still played an active role in the scheme by facilitating the dissipation of criminal proceeds between his bank accounts and withdrawing them in cash.

For each charge of acquiring another person's benefits from criminal conduct, Phua could have been jailed for up to 10 years or fined up to S$500,000, or both.

For obstructing the course of justice, he could have been jailed for up to seven years or fined, or both.

The penalty for driving while under a disqualification order is a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to S$10,000, or both.

Anyone guilty of driving a vehicle without insurance could be jailed for up to three months or fined S$1,000, or both.