Sylvia Lim on amendment bills for tougher laws to tackle money mules, Singpass abusers

Under proposed changes to the law, a suspected money mule will be expected to make a “reasoned assessment” of the nature of the transaction, as a possible defence is that they did not know or had no reasonable grounds to believe that the funds involved were the proceeds of crime. How then will the authorities approach a case where the suspect appears to be mentally impaired? With 98.7 per cent of alleged money mules not prosecuted in the past three years, were these all due to difficulties in proving intention or were there other grounds as well? As punishments for the new offences of rash or negligent money laundering will be lower than for acts done deliberately or with knowledge, what is the Ministry of Home Affairs’ assessment of how this change will improve prosecution rates in future? These questions were raised by MP Sylvia Lim in Parliament on Monday (May 8) during the debate on the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) (Amendment) Bill and Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill.