One man who was the director of 980 companies in Singapore has been jailed and fined for negligent conduct as some of the firms were found to have engaged in money laundering.
Xie Yong has been sentenced to four weeks in prison and pay S$57,000 ($42,900) in fines by a Singapore court over neglect of his duties as a director of 980 companies.
The 37-year-old Singaporean man’s directorships were obtained through his company – DD Corporate Services – which offers accounting and corporate services to foreign clients seeking incorporation in the city-state. According to a «Business Times» report citing court proceedings, most of his clients were from China.
Illegal Activities
Deputy Public Prosecutor Janice See said that Xie did not conduct due diligence beyond a simple online search. Xie himself admitted that he intended to get information about these companies’ businesses and activities at the end of the financial year before striking off those found to have engaged in illegal activities.
The case was brought forward following police reports that found two transfers totaling over $1.5 million via a DBS multi-currency account from another case involving cheating. US-based Armor Survival fell victim to a business impersonation scam in October 2020 related to Wei Hui, a purported bags, luggage and travel accessories trading company in Singapore which Xie helped incorporate.
Blacklisted by Local Banks
Separately, $3.1 million belonging to the US-based Jewish Federation of Greater Washington was also laundered through an OCBC account under a company called Joy Trader. Xie took over as director of the firm in June 2020. The money was part of $7.5 million in total which the American company was deceived into transferring to accounts in Hong Kong.
See was originally seeking a four to six-week jail sentence which he said factored in Xie’s additional decision to bring 51-year-old Chinese national Lan Fang into the matter by standing in as director for the companies, after discovering that local banks had blacklisted him. Xie met Lan through Lan Yun Li, her daughter and DD Corporate Services employee.
