SINGAPORE: A man was sentenced to 27 months’ jail on Wednesday (Mar 30) for helping scammers to launder more than half a million dollars’ worth of criminal proceeds through email fraud.
As police investigators from the Commercial Affairs Department closed in on him, Singaporean Mohd Jamail Khan Banakhani Shafi Khan sent them forged agreements to justify his receipt of the funds in 2016 and 2017.
Jamail, 56, was the director of Jars Technology and Jars Investments and Holdings at the time of the offences. Out of the criminal proceeds he received, Jamail used about S$59,000 for his own benefit.
THE OFFENCES
The court heard that Jars Technology received two payments of about S$141,000 and S$325,000 in its Standard Chartered Bank account on May 23 and Jun 10, 2016 respectively.
The transfers were made by Vietnamese company Trading Scientific Technological Materials (Tramat). They were meant as payments to another company, Shimadzu (Asia Pacific), for laboratory equipment.
Tramat had earlier received spoofed emails sent using an email address with the domain name “@sg-shimadzu.com”, which resembled the email address of an actual Shimadzu employee.
The spoofed emails contained instructions for Tramat to make the payments to Jar Technology’s Standard Chartered Bank account instead of Shimadzu’s bank account.
Jamail was the “controlling mind” of Jars Technology, the sole authorised signatory of the bank account where the payments were sent, and had consented to his company receiving the money, said the prosecution.
He claimed to have received the payments in connection with a US$3.5 million investment by a man named Chinazaepere Raphael Okoli to buy a freehold property in Singapore.
This was despite Jamail having no experience or qualifications with property investments and the fact that he himself “found it strange that someone he had never met would trust him with such a huge investment”, said the prosecution.
Of the payments received from Tramat, Jamail transferred S$17,000 to his own loan account, S$4,000 to his personal bank account and withdrew S$10,000 for his personal expenses. He also made out two cheques totalling more than S$28,000 to an auto company.
When Tramat’s director discovered that Shimadzu had not received the payments and that the spoofed emails did not come from a Shimadzu employee, he lodged a police report in Singapore on Jun 20, 2016.
After the police report was made, Jamail forged an investment agreement between Tramat and Jars Investments using Okoli’s electronic signature.
He sent this document to a commercial affairs investigator to deceive her into believing there was a genuine investment arrangement between the two companies, which was an obstruction of the course of justice, said the prosecution.
In May 2017, Jamail again received another S$67,000 in criminal proceeds from email fraud.
This happened after the Singapore branch of Bank Mandiri received spoofed emails purporting to be from an employee of Madhucon Granites, the parent company of Nama Holdings.
The spoofed emails deceived Bank Mandiri into approving transfers from Nama Holdings’ corporate bank account to Jamail’s personal bank account with Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).
Police reports were made by representatives from Bank Mandiri and Madhucon Granites later that month.
During investigations, Jamail claimed to have received the money in connection with a US$2 million investment by a man known as “Mr Namakrishnan” and again provided investigators with a forged investment agreement to justify the transfers.
Investigations showed that Jamail remitted about S$13,600 of the funds to a man named Chibueze Clement Egbukichi in the United Arab Emirates despite the purported agreement not giving him the authority to do so.
“ALTRUISTIC INTENTION”
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lee Wei Liang had earlier sought 30 months’ jail, citing the large amounts of money involved and the prolonged period of offending.
He noted that Jamail continued to transact with suspicious characters even though he was put on notice about them.
Investigations revealed that earlier in 2015, Jamail was probed for money laundering offences in connection with an individual named “John Mark”. He agreed to receive the payments from Tramat despite having reason to believe the same individual was involved.
The prosecutor also pointed out that Jamail produced two forged agreements to frustrate investigations into him, giving the court reason to infer that he knew he was wrong.
Defence lawyer Sofia Bakhash had asked for not more than 20 months’ jail. She said Jamail was a chauffeur with little background in wealth management and that his offences lacked “sophistication”.
She also argued that while the total sum of money involved was large, only about S$59,000 was used by Jamail for his own benefit, mainly to pay off debts.
This showed a “certain altruistic intention” as Jamail was using the money to rectify his financial situation, she said.
District Judge Christopher Goh disagreed with the defence that the harm caused by Jamail’s actions was low.
He granted a deferment for the jail sentence to start after Hari Raya Puasa.