Singapore to pursue more cases of complex cross-border money laundering

SINGAPORE said it will pursue more cases of complex cross-border money laundering on the back of a fresh report from an inter-governmental body that looks at countering illicit fund flows and terrorism financing, a joint statement from three regulatory agencies on Tuesday showed.

The report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Singapore has a strong framework to fend off terrorism financing and dirty money. But it highlighted that as a sophisticated financial centre, the city-state needs to more aggressively target complex transnational cases.

"Singapore's law enforcement agencies, who have been pursuing complex transnational money laundering cases, will strengthen their capabilities to identify and investigate more of such cases," a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Monetary Authority of Singapore said.

It added that the financial intelligence unit under the Commercial Affairs Department will develop more sophisticated data analytics to combat threats of dirty money flowing from abroad through Singapore.

The three agencies said Singapore's regime to combat terrorism financing "was not accorded sufficient credit" by FATF assessors, who do not accept the use of the Internal Security Act as a form of criminal prosecution.

The FATF inspections took place in the last two months of 2015. This means they did not account for actions taken against 1MDB-linked BSI Bank - which was ordered to shut its operations in May 2016 - and convictions this year of six radicalised Bangladeshi nationals under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act.