Man charged over allegedly operating unlicensed money transfer business linked to over $38m
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More than $314,000 in cash and 30 ATM cards were seized, among other items, during a raid of the operations on April 8.
PHOTO: SPF
SINGAPORE – A man accused of operating an unlicensed cross-border money transfer business linked to more than $38 million in total was handed four charges on April 24.
Indian national Raju Krishnamoorthi, 45, was charged with two counts of operating such a business.
He was also charged with engaging in unlicensed remittance activities as a self-employed foreigner without a valid work pass, and conspiring with a director of a company to abet a false declaration in a work pass application.
Raju’s alleged accomplice, a 33-year-old Indian national who was supposed to be charged on April 24, had a warrant of arrest issued against him after he failed to turn up in court.
A review on the matter will be held in June.
Court documents stated that Raju was allegedly a self-employed foreigner without a valid work pass between March 2024 and April 2025.
Despite this, he purportedly engaged in unlicensed remittance services activities in Singapore when he did not have such a pass.
On July 12, 2024, he allegedly engaged in a conspiracy with one Manickam Suresh Kumar, who is not the 33-year-old man, to give a false statement in a work pass application.
Raju is accused of abetting to make the statement, lying that he would be employed at a company called Sky-V Engineering & Construction as a coordinator.
Between March 1, 2024 and Feb 28, 2025, he allegedly operated an unlicensed cross-border money transfer business in Singapore by accepting more than $10 million.
The amount was purportedly meant to be transmitted to people in India.
Between Feb 28 and April 8, 2025, he is said to have engaged in a conspiracy with someone known only as “Syed” to commit a similar offence linked to more than $28 million.
In an earlier joint statement, the police and the Ministry of Manpower said that the police conducted a raid in Norris Road in Little India after receiving a tip-off.
They then discovered that Raju had purportedly carried out unlicensed cross-border money transfer services.
During the raid, the officers seized more than $314,000 in cash, 30 ATM cards, one hard disk, two mobile phones and multiple remittance transaction record books.
Raju’s case will be mentioned again in court in May.
