Man charged with providing unlawful money transfer services; $2.4m including scam proceeds involved
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Preliminary investigations reveal that Sean Koh Chao Lun opened a money transfer account under his company’s name. His case will be mentioned again in court on Jan 15.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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SINGAPORE – A man allegedly opened an account with money transfer firm Wise Asia Pacific to conduct “overseas remittance”.
The account later allegedly received around £1.4 million (S$2.4 million) from overseas Wise accounts, and the amount included at least £75,050 in crime proceeds transferred by two victims of an impersonation scam in Germany.
On Dec 4, Sean Koh Chao Lun, 34, who is accused of failing to establish the source of these funds, was charged with carrying on a business of providing money transfer services without a licence.
At the time of the alleged offence, he was the sole director of a local company called Day Brand.
Preliminary investigations revealed that he had opened the Wise account under his company’s name.
Koh was purportedly engaged in the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies, primarily USDT.
Police said in a statement on Dec 3 that he also allegedly advertised his services on cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance and Huobi, which is now known as HTX.
Interested buyers would then transfer fiat currency – money declared legal tender by a country’s government – to the Wise account of Koh’s company.
Between May 10 and June 17, 2022, its Wise account allegedly received around £1.4 million from overseas Wise accounts.
A police spokesperson said: “(Koh) would then transfer these funds to his personal bank account, before transferring them to other local bank accounts as payments for the purchase of USDT from other cryptocurrency sellers.”
Koh’s company has since been struck off the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority business registry, and his case will be mentioned again in court on Jan 15.
