Former Citibank relationship manager jailed for involvement in billion-dollar money laundering case

SINGAPORE: A former Citibank relationship manager involved in the billion-dollar money laundering case was sentenced to two years’ jail on Thursday (Oct 23) for holding laundered cash, forging loan documents and obstructing justice.

Chinese national Wang Qiming, 27, held S$481,678 in laundered cash for convicted money launderer Su Baolin. Six other charges, including for forging a loan document to cheat Citibank into allowing a deposit of nearly S$1 million into Vang Shuiming’s account, were taken into consideration.

This comes after all 10 offenders in the original money laundering case have finished their sentences and been deported to various countries. Three of them, including Su Haijin, were Wang’s clients.

Wang, represented by his lawyer Vinit Chhabra, asked for a moment to speak to his family after District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt delivered his sentence. He will be appealing the sentence, and chose to start serving time today, his lawyer said.

Wang started working for Citibank as a relationship manager in August 2020, and received a percentage of his clients’ transaction fees as his commission.

The more his clients transacted with the bank, the higher his remuneration.

Describing his offences as “nothing short of egregious”, Judge Chay noted that Wang not only obfuscated the source of the funds in the transactions, but personally collected laundered money for Su Baolin.

Even if Wang had not been aware of the extent of his clients’ money laundering activities, the fact remains that he helped to hide the funds, said the judge.

Responding to the defence’s claim that Wang did not know his clients were money launderers, the judge said money launderers “could not have a label stuck to their head” denoting that they are money launderers.

In mitigation, Wang’s lawyer asked for a total sentence of seven to 11 months' jail, and noted that his client met Su Baolin as a friend of his father’s former classmate.

Mr Chhabra stressed that Wang did not receive any commission for carrying the funds for him “for 30 to 45 minutes”.

Su Baolin also already had a Standard Chartered Bank account and a relationship manager with the bank, which Wang’s lawyer claimed meant that the bank “must have” carried out verification checks on the source of his wealth and funds.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia asked for 24 to 30 months in prison for Wang, noting that the offences were premeditated and that he abused his position as a Citibank relationship manager.

The amount laundered by Su Baolin was significant and close to half a million Singapore dollars, said Mr Ngia in court on Thursday.

This cash was reasonably suspected to be criminal proceeds and Wang “provided no explanation” for these transactions, the court heard.

WORKING WITH SU BAOLIN

Around December 2020, Wang started working with Su Baolin to open a bank account with Citibank and officially became his relationship manager from January the following year.

On Dec 8, 2020, at Su Baolin’s request, Wang helped him arrange the sale of 1,499,980 units of cryptocurrency USDT in exchange for Singapore dollars through a third-party sales agent.

This was part of a “private arrangement” between the two and not done through Citibank’s platforms, the court heard.

Su Baolin instructed Wang that the sale proceeds were to be delivered into the former’s Standard Chartered Bank account. He emphasised that the deposit must be made by a remittance company and not from a personal bank account, and that the sale would be made in a few tranches over several days so that each deposited sum “would not be as great”.

This came after Su Baolin expressed concern that the sales agent may abscond with the money if the entire amount of USDT was sold in one transaction.

Wang agreed to his requests, and told Su Baolin that the sales agent had suggested splitting up the transaction into tranches so they would be less likely to attract queries from Standard Chartered Bank.

Wang instructed the sales agent, whom he had engaged, according to Su Baolin’s instructions. But after the first tranche of the transaction, where 499,999 USDT was sold for S$657,980, the money was deposited into Su Baolin’s bank account by a personal bank account belonging to a “Se Liang”.

Both Wang and Su Baolin did not know who Se Liang was, and the latter was angry when he discovered that the deposit was using a personal bank account instead of a corporate bank account, the court heard.

Su Baolin demanded that Wang “do up” a loan agreement to account for the deposit, and said that without this agreement, there would be no other way to explain the deposit to his bank.

Wang agreed, conspiring with Su Baolin to make a false loan agreement to cheat Standard Chartered Bank.

He forged a “Borrowing Agreement” dated Dec 20, 2019, between Su Baolin and Se Liang, where the latter agreed to repay the former S$658,000 within 12 months from the supposed agreement date. Wang came to this total sum corresponding with the figure deposited, accounting for the S$20 bank charges.

Su Baolin also asked Wang to cancel the sales arrangement for the remaining 999,990 USDT that he had intended to sell, but about 364,908 USDT had already been sold by the accused’s sales agent for about SGD 481,678 on 15 December 2020.

He then instructed Wang to collect these proceeds in cash from the sales agent. Wang agreed, and collected the S$481,678 in cash and delivered it to Su Baolin’s residential address in Singapore on the same day.

In the course of police investigations, Su Baolin admitted to the police that he had operated and supervised overseas illegal online gambling websites since 2019. He said that he received his payouts from the illegal online gambling business every three to six months and converted his criminal proceeds into USDT.

In September 2023, Wang was shown his WhatsApp messages with Su Baolin as evidence for the circumstances surrounding the sale of the USDT. When asked by the police to explain the messages, Wang repeatedly said he could not remember, court documents said.

“The accused failed to account satisfactorily how he came by the said cash,” the court heard.

OTHER FORGERY CASES

Wang also forged documents for other clients who were not part of the billion-dollar money-laundering case.

He pleaded guilty to the following: 

• In February 2021, forging two remittance receipts by PT Surya Citra Remitan to cheat Citibank Singapore into believing deposits of S$999,980 into the bank account of a Xie Yuyan were substantiated.
• In May 2021, forging a remittance receipt issued by PT Fajar Sukses Batam to substantiate a deposit of US$299,980 into Xie Yuyan's Citibank account.
• Around May 4, 2021, submitting a forged loan agreement between Xie Yuyan and Chen Huangpei as supporting documentation to Citibank Singapore.
• In April 2021, forging a loan document between Wang Shuiming and Chen Chengbao to deceive Citibank Singapore into believing a deposit of S$999,980 into Wang's Citibank account was substantiated.
• Between June and July 2021, forging a remittance slip issued by PT Fajar Sukses Batam so Citibank Singapore would believe a deposit of S$1,999,980 into Xu Yongkun's Citibank account was substantiated.
• Lying to an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officer that he had lost his passport around Nov 15, 2021.

When the police started investigating Wang, they went to his house on Oct 12, 2021. Despite the police knocking on his door for about 20 minutes from 7.30am that morning, Wang did not open the door or pick up the investigating officer’s phone calls.

At about 8.52am, police officers managed to establish contact with Wang on his phone, and entered his house at 9am to conduct investigations. They seized his mobile phone, and found that there was no WhatsApp app on his phone.

Investigations found that four minutes after officers established contact with Wang, he deleted the WhatsApp app from his mobile phone, which also wiped the records of any WhatsApp messages on his phone.

These included relevant evidence that incriminated him, the court heard. As a result, the police were unable to recover the relevant WhatsApp messages regarding his transactions with Xie Yuyan and Xu Yongkun.

The WhatsApp messages with Su Baolin were recovered from Su Baolin’s mobile phone only.

For holding laundered cash, Wang could have faced a fine of up to S$150,000, three years’ prison or both.

The punishment for committing forgery with the intention of using the forged document or electronic record to cheat is a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine. For obstructing justice, the punishment is a prison term of up to seven years, a fine, or both.