Woman arrested, S$4.4m seized in Singapore-HK joint op against suspected cross-border pump-and-dump syndicate
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A SINGAPORE-BASED female suspected of being part of pump-and-dump scams on stocks listed in Hong Kong has been arrested, with S$4.4 million in cash seized in a joint operation between the two financial hubs.
The simultaneous joint operation by Singapore and Hong Kong securities regulators and police is the first-of-its-kind in tackling cross border pump-and-dump scams, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) said in a joint statement on Thursday (Dec 16).
Under the extra-territoriality provision of Singapore's Securities and Futures Act, a person may be guilty of an offence relating to an act occurring partly in Singapore even though the security is listed on an overseas market.
The investigation was coordinated with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the Hong Kong Police Force, which launched investigations in Hong Kong on the same day.
In a pump-and-dump scam, the stock price of a company would be artificially inflated by the perpetrators in buying up the shares and spreading false favourable news about the company via social media and messaging applications to induce victims to buy the shares.
When prices are sufficiently high, the perpetrators would sell the stocks to the victims, leaving the latter holding stocks with plummeted value and end up suffering substantial losses.
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However, perpetrators would have made financial gains from the pump-and-dump modus operandi.
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