Singapore:
An Indian national, his Singaporean colleague and the company they work at were on Thursday charged in a Singapore court in a case involving money transfer to China where beneficiaries could not access funds of about SGD13 million.
Malik Sameer, 36, the compliance manager at Samlit Moneychanger in Chinatown here, was handed 39 charges under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA).
His Singaporean colleague, 45-year-old Novianti, who goes by only one name and was the company director, was also charged with him, The Straits Times reported.
Together, Samlit as the company, Novianti and Malik face 17 charges each under the Act, The Straits Times reported.
In 2023, the police received more than 670 reports of remittances frozen by Chinese authorities, with about SGD13 million (USD10 million) in funds affected.
At the time, Samlit Moneychanger was named as one of the affected companies, according to a Channel News Asia report.
In February 2024, asked Samlit Moneychanger to address the affected remitters’ complaints but the company allegedly failed to do so, according to media reports here.
In a joint statement on Thursday, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that the beneficiaries in China could not access funds that were remitted through Samlit because the money had been frozen or confiscated by the authorities there.
Investigations also involved what the agencies described as Samlit’s “abrupt surrender” of its payment services licence to discontinue its business during an ongoing inspection by MAS.
Between February 24 and August 30, 2024, the SPF also issued Samlit with 20 orders, requiring it to provide passwords and authentication access to seized devices and e-mail accounts. The orders were not complied with.
The cases involving Samlit, Malik and Novianti have been adjourned to August 6, 2026.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
