LOCAL DIRECTOR OF 980 SHELL COMPANIES RECEIVES ONLY FOUR WEEKS IN JAIL; DETERRENCE? WE THINK NOT.

 

The local Singaporean corporate service provider who ended up as the director of 980 foreign (Chinese-controlled) companies, many of whom are linked to the country's money laundering mului-billion dollar  (S$2.8bn) scandal, received a pitifully short four weeks in jail, plus a small fine. What's wrong with this picture? Apparently the island nation's laws are not tough enough to deter such willful blindness, through this nre case will of course result in tightening up the AML situation.

As a career money launderer in my dark past, I used Delaware corporation service firms every day to act as nominee directors, while my Delaware corporations registered vessels used for drug smuggling, with no ascertainable Beneficial owners. It appears the Chinese have learned that lesson well. The follow-up is that you then let the corporation be dissolved by the local equivalent of the Secretary of State for failure to file any directors' names. Nowhere are your criminal clients' names ever provided to regulators.

For those readers who wondered why I posted something from the Isle of Man, which in the bad old days might have had a director similarly situated, it's all good clean Xmas fun and laundryman misdirection; our readers quickly looked to scan the article, and if these was something criminal that we wanted you to miss and ignore, it served its purpose. Misdirection and Confusion to the Enemy is the aim of money launderers, and they usually succeed. Don't be fooled; Distraction is the order of the day.