Money laundering convict Su Wenqiang to be deported to where his passport allows him to travel

Su Wenqiang, the first of 10 foreigners embroiled in the more-than-S$3 billion money laundering case to be convicted, will be deported after serving his jail term, said the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).

“Foreigners convicted of offences in Singapore will be deported after serving their sentences and barred from re-entering Singapore.

“The location of deportation is dependent on the admissibility of the foreigner based on his/her valid passport,” ICA said in response to queries from The Business Times on where Su will be repatriated after serving his jail term.

Su, originally from China, became a Cambodian national on Oct 7, 2019. In addition to a Cambodian passport, he also holds passports from China and Vanuatu. China does not recognise dual nationality for any Chinese national.

In response to queries from BT, the Ministry of Manpower said that Su was on a Dependent’s Pass, which expired in March this year.

He was sentenced on Tuesday (Apr 2) to 13 months’ jail upon pleading guilty to two charges of money laundering involving assets of more than S$500,000.

Another nine charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

The sentences for the two charges will run concurrently and were backdated to Aug 15, 2023, when he was arrested in an islandwide anti-money laundering blitz. Up until now, he has been in remand for almost eight months.

Associate Professor Mervyn Cheong from the National University of Singapore’s law faculty told The Straits Times that if Su’s sentence is backdated to his date of arrest, he might be out at the end of April, or early May.

An inmate will usually receive a one-third remission under the Prisons Act, unless certain incidents such as committing an offence in prison occur. With the remission, Su’s effective jail term could be about eight-and-a-half months.

On which country Su would go to, Prof Cheong said it is not where Singapore wants to deport him, but where his passport allows him to travel. He said foreign offenders will usually travel back to where they are a citizen of.

In response to queries on what will happen to the seized assets that Su has surrendered to the state, the police said the non-cash assets will be sold through means such as auctions; the proceeds of the sale, along with forfeited cash, will be paid into Singapore’s Consolidated Fund. The fund is analogous to a bank account held by the government.

The police said on Tuesday that it had seized from Su around S$6 million in assets in the form of cash, two vehicles, jewellery, luxury items and alcohol.

David Chew, director of Commercial Affairs Department, noted that the police have seized all illicit funds brought into Singapore by the accused.

“Law enforcement, the Suspicious Transaction Reporting Office and regulatory agencies will continue to work together to better detect complex money laundering, arrest the criminals, charge them and deprive them of their ill-gotten gains,” he said. 

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