Russian man and Singaporean woman charged over money laundering activities

SINGAPORE – A Russian man and a Singaporean woman were hauled to a district court on Oct 9 over their alleged involvement in money laundering activities.

Russian Kuznetsov Pavel, 35, was handed 14 charges for several offences, including abetting unknown persons’ unauthorised access to corporate bank accounts, forging documents and abetting local company directors in failing to exercise reasonable diligence in their duties.

His accomplice, Singaporean Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, 42, was given eight charges, including abetting unauthorised access to bank accounts and transferring property reasonably suspected to be proceeds of criminal conduct.

The police said in a statement on Oct 8 that Pavel had provided corporate secretarial services to local and foreign clients in 2020 and 2021 through a firm he owned here.

He later recruited two people to serve as directors of two companies and allegedly told them that they did not need to exercise supervisory oversight over the companies or their bank accounts.

Pavel also allegedly recruited Ngoc as a local director of several companies, including Mobi Inter Plus, Trading Software and Union Trader.

She then opened a bank account and took control of other accounts belonging to two companies for which she was appointed a director, according to the police.

Between March and June 2021, one of the accounts received more than $300,000 in various currencies from fraud and investment scams targeting foreign victims.

When questioned by the police, Ngoc could not explain the source of the funds.

Another bank account controlled by Ngoc received almost US$164,000 (S$210,000) in November 2021. The funds were proceeds from an investment scam involving a foreign victim.

“Investigations established that the man and woman had reasonable grounds to believe they were involved in an arrangement facilitating the retention or control of benefits from criminal conduct on behalf of unknown persons,” the police added.

On Dec 23, 2020, Ngoc was also said to have encashed a cheque for $430,777.50 and passed the cash to an unknown male.

She had allegedly done so despite having reasonable grounds to believe that the cash was illegally obtained.

Pavel’s case will be heard again in court on Oct 26.

Ngoc’s case will be mentioned in court on Nov 20.

Claudia Tan is a journalist at The Straits Times covering the crime and court desk.