TRIAL kicked off Monday in the case of former private banker Yeo Jiawei, the first individual to be tried in Singapore amid the ongoing international probe on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
According to Channel News Asia, Yeo, who is a former BSI bank wealth planner, is accused of perverting the course of justice by tampering with key witnesses in urging them to lie and destroy evidence.
Prosecutors said Yeo, who was arrested in March, was instrumental in laundering “staggering amounts” of money and amassing some SG$26 million (US$18 million) while handling the 1MDB-related funds.
“This is by far the most sophisticated, largest money laundering case the (Commercial Affairs Department) has handled,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Kiat Pheng was quoted as saying in the opening of Yeo’s trial.
The former banker is on trial for four charges of perverting the course of justice and faces up to seven years’ jail with a fine if convicted. A further seven charges of money laundering charges have been stood down for now.
The prosecutors told the district court that the 33-year-old Yeo, who worked for BSI between December 2009 and July 2014, had contacted three witnesses to ask them to lie to the police to protect him and his firm, Bridgerock Investment, the day after he was released on bail in March.
The District Court heard that Yeo, during a meeting at Swiss Club in Singapore on March 27, had asked BSI’s wealth management services director, Kevin Michael Swampillai, to tell police that a series of bank transfers by Samuel Goh Sze-Wei to Bridgerock Investment and GTB Investment were genuine investments.
SEE ALSO: Singapore: Another 2 BSI bank officials charged amid probe into Malaysian state fund
The prosecutors said in reality, Yeo and Swampillai were the owners of Bridgerock Investment and GTB Investment respectively, and that the funds were siphoned from BSI bank and an unnamed fund manager. Yeo, during the same meeting, had also allegedly asked Goh to tell police that the transfers were his investments.
“In a display of complete and wanton disregard for the law and CAD’s investigations, he met and contacted key witnesses in the hope of suppressing incriminatory evidence pertaining to his own illicit schemes and activities,” DPP Tan said, as quoted by the Straits Times.
Prosecutors also charged that Yeo had used Amicorp Group to facilitate illicit transactions. Yeo was also accused of asking an Amicorp Group employee, Jose Renato Carvalho Pinto, to dispose of the latter’s laptop for containing evidence of Yeo’s dealings with the group, and urging the latter not to travel to Singapore where he would be questioned by its Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), CNA reported.
Yeo, prosecutors said, had also asked Pinto via the “Telegram” messaging application to tell his colleague to deny any knowledge of his dealing’s with Amicorp group if he was ever questioned by the CAD.
#Singapore's high profile trial of ex#BSI banker involved in #Malaysia's #1MDB to start in about an hour pic.twitter.com/VecfZg6xKl
— Anita Gabriel (@AnitaGabrielBT) October 31, 2016
The trial is scheduled to last up to nine days from Oct 31 to Nov 7 and the court is expected to call upon nine witnesses in the case against Yeo.
Yeo is among three former BSI employees facing related charges. Last month, authorities charged Yak Yew Chee and Yvonne Seah with carrying out suspicious money transfers for Malaysian tycoon Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, in a related case.
A broker with a Singapore Maybank branch, Kelvin Ang, is awaiting trial after being charged with allegedly paying a research analyst to produce a favourable valuation report on certain 1MDB assets, the Straits Times reported.
In early October, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) withdrew the merchant bank status of Falcon Private Bank Ltd over “serious” breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations in relation to 1MDB transfers.
Falcon was the second Swiss bank ordered shut by Singapore over violations linked to 1MDB after BSI was ordered to be shuttered in May.
SEE ALSO: Singapore: Swiss bank shuttered; two others fined over 1MDB scandal
1MDB is currently the subject of numerous multi-agency probes across the world, as well as a civil lawsuit filed recently by the United States’ Department of Justice (DoJ).
According to U.S. prosecutors, fund officials have diverted more than US$3.5 billion through a web of shell companies and bank accounts abroad.
Despite the allegations, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who chairs the fund, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the handling of 1MDB, from which hundreds of millions dollars were found deposited in his personal bank accounts.
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