Singapore punishes individuals, organisations linked to 1MDB Fund scandal
Hanoi
(VNA) – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on March 13 announced its
punishments on former banking officials found involving in the money-laundering
activity of the 1MDB Fund.
Accordingly, MAS
issued a 10-year ban, with immediate effect, for Tim Leissner, former director
of Goldman Sachs Singapore, from participating in any activities, directly or
indirectly, under the realm of the Securities and Futures Acts as well as
managing any financial companies in Singapore.
It also announced
bans from 15 years to lifetime for Jens Sturzenegger, former manager of Swiss-based
Falcon Bank’s office in Singapore, Yak Yew Chee and Yvonne Seah Yew Foong, formers
employees of Switzerland’s BSI Bank.
Earlier, in
2016, MAS withdrew the operation licences of two Swiss banks BSI and Falcon with
a combined fine of nearly 13 million USD, fined Singapore’s DBS and
Switzerland’s UBS nearly 1.7 million USD in total and two UK banks Standard
Chartered and Coutts over 5.3 million USD.
Singapore
suspended many accounts while probing 1MDB Fund’s scandal.
The 1MDB Fund
was formed by the Malaysian government to promote economic development in
Malaysia via global partnership and foreign direct investment. But in 2015, the
fund lost 3.5 billion USD, which led to financial probes in many countries like
the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia and China.-VNA