Various suspicious transaction reports filed to authorities prompted the probe into Singapore’s headline money laundering scandal, not a Chinese government request, a city-state official maintains.
On August 16, police in the city-state arrested 10 foreigners who were likely from China related to alleged money laundering and other financial crimes. Given the visit by China's foreign minister Wang Yi just six days earlier, many have begun to speculate about possible links between the two events.
«We started the investigations because we had reason to believe that these people had committed offenses in Singapore. We didn’t start the investigations at the request of some foreign country or party or because of external pressure,» said Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam in an interview with the Chinese newspaper «Lianhe Zaobao».
Not so Fast
According to Shanmugam, the investigation had been going on for months and there was little possibility that something of that scale could be conducted in a matter of days or even weeks.
«Just because a country says arrest so-and-so doesn’t mean we go and arrest. It’s got to be illegal in Singapore. We need to be satisfied and we need to know that things have happened which are contrary to our laws, then we will take action – regardless of what others say,» he said.
In total, police have seized S$1.8 billion ($1.3 billion) in assets as part of the ongoing scandal. The 10 alleged suspects used the services of numerous banks in one form or another, with Julius Baer, Credit Suisse, RHB Bank, UOB, Bank of Singapore, CIMB, Citi, DBS, and Deutsche Bank indicated as having potential links to the activities they undertook.
