Jail for man linked to foreigner who fled before others were nabbed in $3b money laundering case

. The trio were between 33 and 39 years old at the time.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Shaun Lim told the court that Chen had earlier paid an agent in China for help in applying for a work permit in Singapore.

He later obtained a work permit under a construction firm and came here in June 2022. He attended some training sessions that the firm provided but did not work for it in the end.

Instead, he went around looking for other jobs and was later introduced to Xu. The Vanuatu citizen told him that he had rented a property in Jalan Kampong Chantek, near Dunearn Road, and needed help to furnish it.

Xu offered to pay Chen if the latter could help him to do so. Chen, who agreed to help Xu, went on to run various other errands later.

In return, Xu paid him a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan (S$3,700), with the amount later increasing to 30,000 yuan.

One of the errands involved collecting money on Xu’s behalf.

From late 2022 onwards, Xu would arrange for Chen to receive cash in Jalan Kampong Chantek through delivery riders dispatched by money changers.

Between late 2022 and Sept 9, 2024, Chen received almost $11.6 million over 23 occasions.

The DPP said: “The accused found it suspicious that he was asked to receive such large amounts of money in cash, bypassing banks or other formal financial channels, and suspected that Xu was involved in illegal activities.

“Nonetheless, as the accused saw himself as merely a worker for Xu, he did not question Xu about the source of the monies or take any other action.”

Taking instructions from Xu, Chen then passed a portion of the money to another man. The amount involved was not stated in court documents.

Chen also used nearly $2.5 million on the monthly rentals of multiple properties, including the Jalan Kampong Chantek house as well as an apartment each in Stirling Road and River Valley Road.

Xu later told Chen that some “friends” were coming to Singapore and asked him to source accommodation for them. The “friends” turned out to be Yan, Huang and Liu.

The prosecutor said Xu had invited the trio to Singapore as he wanted to employ them as hackers to obtain personal data so he could send targeted advertisements for his gambling websites.

Without revealing details, DPP Lim added: “Xu and the (trio) deliberately avoided targeting Singapore websites, as they felt it was not right to do so while operating in Singapore.

“They also tried to avoid targeting government websites to keep a low profile, but foreign government-related data was found on the (trio’s) devices after their arrest.”

Earlier media reports stated that Yan’s laptop was found to contain messages discussing vulnerable domains, which included five Australian, Argentinian and Vietnamese government sites.

Liu’s laptop contained a confidential e-mail between officers of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development.

Chen had suspected the trio were also involved in illegal activities, but he did not say anything as he felt it was “not his place to ask questions”.

Acting on Xu’s directions, Chen found a bungalow in the Mount Sinai area near Holland Road and helped the trio to rent the property.

The trio moved in soon after and Chen supported their living expenses with money from Xu.

Chen also worked for Xu as a housekeeper despite not having a valid work pass to do so.

Another errand Chen ran for Xu involved the moving and safekeeping of the latter’s liquor collection.

Before Aug 15, 2023, Xu lived at the Jalan Kampong Chantek house, amassing a collection that included vintage editions of whisky and wines. After Xu left Singapore, he instructed Chen to have the liquor transferred to a storage facility for safekeeping.

DPP Lim said: “(Chen) was aware that the collection was expensive, and he was also conscious that Xu’s instructions came shortly after news broke of the arrest of 10 Chinese nationals for money laundering.”

Despite this, he engaged movers to move around 40 crates of liquor to a storage facility in Changi.

Chen later received a call from a property agent who said there were many police officers at the Mount Sinai property.

He decided to flee to Malaysia but was arrested at the Woodlands Checkpoint on Sept 10, 2024.

The authorities later seized the collection, found to consist of more than 400 bottles of alcoholic beverages worth at least $7 million in total.