Man walks free after facing charge over $2.4m in unlawful money transfers

At the time of the purported offence, he was the sole director of a local company called Day Brand, which has since been struck off by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).

Police said in an earlier statement that based on preliminary investigations, Koh had opened an account with money transfer firm Wise Asia Pacific to conduct “overseas remittance” through Day Brand.

He was purportedly engaged in the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies, primarily USDT.

Police added that he also allegedly advertised his services on cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance.

Interested buyers then transferred fiat currency – money declared legal tender by a government – to the Wise account of Koh’s company.

Between May 10 and June 17, 2022, its Wise account allegedly received around £1.4 million from overseas Wise accounts.

A police spokesperson had said: “(Koh) would then transfer these funds to his personal bank account, before transferring them to other local bank accounts as payments for the purchase of USDT from other cryptocurrency sellers.”

Koh purportedly did not attempt to establish the source of the funds. At least £75,050 was later established to be crime proceeds transferred by two victims of an impersonation scam in Germany.

Court documents and the police did not disclose details about that case.