SU HAIJIN, one of the 10 foreign nationals prosecuted in Singapore’s largest money-laundering case, was sentenced to an imprisonment term of 14 months after pleading guilty to one count of resisting arrest and two counts of money laundering on Thursday (Apr 4).

He agreed to have about 90 per cent of S$170 million worth of seized assets forfeited to the state as part of the plea bargain.

The 41-year-old had refused to open his room door at a Good Class Bungalow in Ewart Park in Bukit Timah when police tried to arrest him at around 6.40 am on Aug 15 last year in an islandwide anti-money-laundering blitz.

Su instead leapt from a second-floor balcony in a bid to escape but was caught hiding in a nearby drain. He fractured his feet and injured his wrist as a result.

His 11 other charges – that were handed to him only on Monday and included offences for abetting the making of false statements to the Ministry of Manpower – were taken into consideration for sentencing purposes by senior district judge Ong Hian Sun.

Su’s jail term has been backdated to the date of his arrest. The former director of Singapore Catalist-listed food and beverage operator No Signboard : 9I7 0% has been remanded in custody since then.

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The prosecution had argued for a jail term of 12 to 15 months, citing a few aggravating factors including that money laundering had a transnational element and the amounts involved were substantial. Su’s resisting arrest has raised his culpability, the deputy public prosecutor added.

The court heard that on the day of Su’s arrest, the police arrived at his Ewart Park bungalow in the early morning and were led up to Su’s bedroom by his son. They breached the locked room door after Su did not respond to the police identifying themselves.

Su was later found to have exited the room by jumping from the master bedroom balcony, which was on the second floor of the bungalow.

The prosecution noted that while Su had difficulties moving after injuring himself, he “hobbled his way down a flight of steps to exit the premises from the side gate” and hid in a drain, where he was arrested.

By refusing to open the door and fleeing from his bedroom, he had intentionally offered resistance to his lawful apprehension, they noted.

The two money laundering charges that Su pleaded guilty to were related to sums held in a DBS bank account and UOB bank account under Yihao Cyber Technologies, a company where Su was the director and sole shareholder.

The prosecution said investigations showed that Yihao Cyber Technologies did not have legitimate business operations in Singapore and did not offer any products or services, and that its office at 8 Marina View was only used to receive letters.

The revenue of the company declared for the financial years 2019 to 2022 was also fictitious. He had conspired with Wang Junjie of filing agent LW Business Consultancy to prepare these statements with inflated revenue and receivable figures, as well as create false business agreements with third parties.

These false statements were submitted to DBS, OCBC and UOB to open bank accounts under Yihao Cyber Technologies.

The court heard that the OCBC bank account received funds amounting to around S$2.4 million in 10 transactions from Marketrole Asia Pacific Services, an overseas company involved in remote gambling activities targeting foreign nationals. This meant that the funds Su received were likely from this unlawful remote gambling service, said the prosecution.

Su claimed that the funds in the account were income the company earned for providing IT or website development and maintenance services, but the business agreements to provide such services were found to have been forged, said the prosecution. He was also unable to provide evidence about these purported services rendered to clients.

The OCBC account holding the S$2.4 million was closed in January 2022. He then transferred S$1 million to Yihao Cyber Technologies’ DBS account, which held around S$438,947.20 when it was seized by the police in August last year. Meanwhile, another S$999,920 was found in Yihao Cyber Technologies’ UOB account.

As the sums were likely to have originated from the S$2.4 million in Yihao Cyber Technologies’ closed OCBC account, there are reasons to believe that they represent Su’s benefits derived from unlawful remote gambling offences, the prosecution noted.

In mitigating, Su’s lawyer said that the accused has agreed to surrender about S$165 million worth of assets including S$91.2 million of real estate properties, cash and balances in bank accounts, in addition to the forfeiture of jewellery, gold bars, liquor and Bearbricks (collectible toy figures produced by Japanese collectible company Medicom Toy).

Su’s defence counsel Julian Tay of Lee & Lee said of his client’s remorse: “He’s not paying lip service, he’s literally walking the talk... He put money where his mouth is.”

Tay noted that Su has given up more than what was stated in the money laundering charges, and sought a jail term of not exceeding 11 months for his client.

Su’s conviction came after the 32-year-old Su Wenqiang on Tuesday pleaded guilty to two money laundering charges involving half a million of dollars and was sentenced to 13 months’ jail.

Su Wenqiang was the first in the group of nine men and one woman nabbed last August over money laundering charges to be dealt with by the court, and the Cambodian passport holder has also forfeited assets worth over S$5.9 million to the state.

The police have seized or frozen more than S$3 billion worth of assets from this group, including real estate, vehicles, money in bank accounts and cash.

Foreigners convicted of offences in Singapore will be deported after serving their sentences and barred from re-entering the Republic, said the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. The location of deportation is dependent on the admissibility of the foreigner based on the person’s valid passport.

A third individual in the group, the 32-year-old Chinese national Wang Baosen who faces two charges, has a plead guilty court mention fixed for Apr 16.