Money laundering accused, Su Haijin, slapped with 12 new charges for cheating IRAS, MOM, banks

Source: Business Times
Article Date: 02 Apr 2024
Author: Megan Cheah

Su, who allegedly jumped from bungalow balcony, also holds around S$3.8 million in criminal proceeds with the three local banks.

Money laundering accused Su Haijin was on Monday (Apr 1) handed 12 new charges for allegedly conspiring to cheat the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) and Manpower Ministry (MOM), as well as possessing around S$3.8 million in criminal proceeds.

Charge sheets also indicate that Su conspired to submit forged financial statements of a company, Yihao Cyber Technologies, to financial institutions and the authorities. The company is a developer of software and applications incorporated on Jan 3, 2017, according to filings with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra).

Su, who allegedly jumped from a second-floor balcony of a Good Class Bungalow to evade arrest, now faces 14 charges, up from the two – one for evading arrest and another for money laundering – he was handed previously.

His money laundering charge was amended to note that Su received around S$2.4 million in benefits from unlawful remote gambling in an OCBC bank account, through 10 separate transactions between January to October 2021. The bank account was held under Yihao Cyber Technologies, of which Su has been a director and shareholder since January 2017.

Among the new charges, one found that Su, through Yihao Cyber Technologies, had nearly S$440,000 in criminal proceeds banked in a DBS account, while a third noted he had nearly S$1 million in criminal proceeds in Yihao Cyber Technologies’ UOB account.

He also allegedly engaged in a conspiracy with one Wang Junjie to make false representations to Iras from 2020 to 2022 about the “true and accurate values” of Yihao Cyber Technologies’ revenue, gross profits and trade receivables for FY2019, FY2020 and FY2021. Wang was previously a qualified individual at filing agent LW Consultancy, but both his and LW Consultancy’s registrations were cancelled by Acra in January.

Wang and Su also purportedly conspired to make false representations about Yihao Cyber Technologies’ FY2021 numbers to MOM in May 2022.

In 2022, the duo also allegedly submitted forged FY2021 financial statements for Yihao Cyber Technologies to DBS and UOB, with the intention of opening corporate bank accounts; they also submitted forged statements to OCBC, to support Su’s application to join the bank’s Premier Private Client Segment.

Two charges were related to Su abetting Wu Qin, his wife, to sign and declare forged in-principle approval forms for an employee pass in December 2021 and for the renewal of the pass in July 2023 to MOM. The forms stated she was to be the chairman of Culbert Management, when she held no such post.

In 2023, Su also allegedly instructed one Chen Yanyan to sign and declare a forged in-principle approval form stating she was to be employed by Culbert Management as a personal assistant. However, she had no intention of working there.

Su, a Cypriot national, indicated that he would be pleading guilty on Apr 4 and return to court then. He will remain in remand.

In addition to the new charges on Monday, Su, who is also a former director of restaurant operator No Signboard Holdings : 9I7 0%, faces one charge of unlawfully evading arrest.

The charge alleges that he refused to open his room door on Aug 15 at a Good Class Bungalow at Ewart Park, and instead left the room from the second-floor balcony.

According to a hospital memo previously read in court, Su sustained fractures to his femur, heel and wrist.

Last year, it was reported that the total value of assets seized from Su and his wife increased to over S$170 million. This includes S$2.1 million in cash, S$46.5 million in bank accounts, S$120 million in properties and S$2.6 million worth of vehicles.

He was also found to have substantial wealth overseas, owning one condominium in Cambodia, three in Cyprus, five in Macau, one property along Oxford Street in London, and partial ownership of a yacht named Family.

The money-laundering bust, which resulted in the arrests of 10 foreign nationals in an island-wide blitz, now involves more than S$3 billion in assets, which have been seized by the authorities.

Meanwhile, Su Wenqiang, one of the other nine accused, is expected to plead guilty on Apr 2, while Wang Baosen has a plead guilty court mention fixed for Apr 16.