Singapore's Billion-Dollar Scandal

Singapore’s Billion-Dollar Scandal

How authorities uncovered what is now the largest money laundering case in the city-state’s history

In a case that has upended Singapore’s financial sector, authorities have uncovered a money laundering scandal that involves an astonishing $2.2 billion in illicit assets. At the same time, they revealed a complex web of deception that has tainted the city-state’s reputation and – perhaps more disturbingly – demonstrated systemic failures within its anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory frameworks.

As we note in our case study, at the heart of this elaborate scheme were methods as varied as they were insidious. The operation revealed a network stretching from unlicensed money lending in China to elaborate scams and remote online gambling operations based in the Philippines. Despite early warnings dating back to 2021, regulatory bodies failed to take decisive action until mid-2023, allowing the scheme to flourish unchecked.

The scandal’s exposure laid bare a series of systemic and glaring failures within Singapore’s financial oversight mechanisms. Don’t miss our analysis of this case, what went wrong and what could make a difference so this doesn’t happen again.

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