7 people accused of laundering money for scam syndicate to be charged in court

SINGAPORE: Six males and a lady will be charged in court on Thursday (Sep 22) for their suspected involvement in laundering money for a transnational scam syndicate.

The suspects, aged 21 to 25, had been allegedly recruited by an India-based prison syndicate to switch money derived from varied abroad tech help scams, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) mentioned on Wednesday.

A criticism was made by a scam sufferer in Canada on Sep 16 final yr. He claimed to have misplaced greater than S$12,500 after falling prey to a tech help scam. 

"The scammer allegedly impersonated a member of staff from a company providing firewall and virus removal services and offered the victim a refund on his pre-paid subscription," SPF mentioned.

On the pretext of eradicating the software program from his laptop, the scammer was allowed to entry the sufferer's laptop remotely. 

In the method, the sufferer's Internet banking log-in particulars had been revealed and used to switch money from his (*7*) checking account to an account in Singapore.

Police investigations led to the arrest of the seven suspects. They allegedly adopted the directions of the syndicate and started receiving money in August 2020 from unknown abroad sources into their financial institution accounts, with the whole amounting to greater than S$300,000 by September 2020.

The suspects then withdrew the money and handed it over to different unknown people in Singapore. They acquired greater than S$30,000 in commissions, mentioned the police.