SINGAPORE, April 26 — One of 10 people allegedly involved in Singapore’s largest money laundering case was handed five new charges today.
Zhang Ruijin, 45, already faced three charges of forgery before today’s charges, and is set to plead guilty on Tuesday.
Charge sheets for the earlier three charges stated that he allegedly forged three documents that indicated he had borrowed funds from a Hong Kong firm and received money from the sale of two Macau properties. These documents were used to cheat CIMB bank.
Zhang, who is in remand, appeared in court via video today.
His five new charges are:
- One charge of fraudulently using a document he knew to be forged, to indicate he had received money from the sale of a Macau property. This was allegedly done to cheat Standard Chartered Bank
- Three charges of failing to account for deposits — totalling HK$151.3 million (RM92 million) — in his CIMB bank account, which may be “reasonably suspected” to represent benefits from criminal conduct
- One charge of failing to account for HK$56,854,000 deposited in his Standard Chartered bank account, which may be “reasonably suspected” to represent benefits from criminal conduct
For fraudulently using as genuine any document which he knows or has reason to believe is forged, Zhang could be jailed for up to four years, fined, or both.
For possessing property that may be reasonably suspected of being benefits of criminal conduct and failing to account satisfactorily for how he came by the property, Zhang could be jailed for up to three years, fined up to S$150,000 (RM525,318), or both.
Earlier this week, another suspect in the scheme, Su Baolin, 42, was also handed three new charges, and will plead guilty next Monday.
Three others in the case — Wang Baosen, Su Haijin and Su Wenqiang — were sentenced to jail for money laundering-related charges earlier this month.
The overall money laundering scheme is said to have involved about S$3 billion. — TODAY
