Jail for money mule who sold Singpass details used to launder S$562,000 in criminal funds
SINGAPORE — A woman acted as a "money mule" by selling her Singpass and other personal details to a friend for S$1,000. Her details were used to open a corporate bank account where criminal proceeds of S$562,334 were deposited.
The woman, Rina Samad, 48, pleaded guilty on Tuesday (May 16) to a single charge of disclosing her Singpass details to another for financial gain. A second similar charge was taken into account for sentencing.
Rina was sentenced to three months' jail.
In addition to her original sentence, she was given an enhanced sentence of 36 days' jail because she had committed the crime during a remission order over a drug-related charge under the Prisons Act.
Although the term "money mule" was not used in court documents, the role of Rina in this case in facilitating the laundering of criminal proceeds is broadly the type of conduct that is the subject of proposed tougher laws on money mules.
WHAT HAPPENED
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Kathy Chu told the court that a police report was lodged on Jan 4 last year by Mr Richard Soemita, who claimed that Greentouch USA Inc's computer system may have been hacked, resulting in the loss of US$415,320 (about S$556,000), which had been transferred to Miso Cosmetics Trade and Acelstar Trade.
Investigations began into the two companies, which revealed that sometime in September 2021, Rina's friend Susila Hyrawatty Hashim had offered her S$1,000 in exchange for becoming a nominee director of a company.
Rina agreed and at Susila's request, she provided a photograph of the front and back of her national identity card, the user identity and password to her Singpass account, the one-time passwords to her Singpass account, and her signature.
Singpass is the national authentication and passcode system for e-government and other services.
On Oct 12, 2021, Miso Cosmetics was incorporated in Singapore with Rina registered as the sole director and shareholder of the company.
Despite agreeing to be the director of Miso Cosmetics, Rina had not done any due diligence checks and was not involved in any aspects of the business. She was not aware of the company's registered address and did not have access to the company's email account.
Rina had agreed to take on the role as director of the company only for her own financial gain and had no intention of discharging her duties as a Miso Cosmetics' director, DPP Chu said.
As well as assisting to incorporate Miso Cosmetics, Susila had asked Rina to open a United Overseas Bank (UOB) account for the business.
However, Rina refused and was persistently contacted by Susila who offered to give her S$5,000 in exchange for her help.
To stop Susila from contacting her, Rina blocked communication from her on Telegram and WhatsApp.
A UOB eBusiness account was eventually opened for Miso Cosmetics on Oct 18 with Rina's particulars.
In December, S$562,334.19 was transferred into the account, before another substantial transfer was made out of the UOB account.
It was not stated in court documents when Rina was arrested.
Speaking on behalf of Rina, lawyer Wee Hong Shern from Ong & Co LLC asked District Judge Shawn Ho to consider a nine-week jail term since Susila was the "main instigator" behind this scheme.
Mr Wee stressed that while an "uplift" of sentence is warranted, it should not be in the region of the three to four months that the prosecution was seeking.
In response, the prosecution said that it considered the longer sentence was appropriate as there was an "added layer" in this case where the money had gone into a corporate account, which makes it hard for the authorities to trace.
For disclosing her Singpass details to another person, Rina could have been jailed for up to three years or fined up to S$10,000.
