S'porean man admits to laundering nearly $170k in scam proceeds from US

A Singaporean man who laundered nearly $170,000 in scam proceeds from victims of wire fraud in the United States has been convicted in a district court here.

Jayakanth Mukku, 55, pleaded guilty on Oct 6 to three counts of acquiring criminal benefits. One similar charge will be taken into consideration for his sentencing on Oct 24.

He also roped in other people to set up bank accounts and receive the dirty monies.

During the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, Mukku claimed, his former roommate asked him if he could help a few students in Singapore receive monies from their relatives in India.

Mukku was supposed to receive the funds and hand them to a man named Harmeet Singh and other people, purportedly for the students' tuition fees and daily maintenance expenses.

In June 2020, Mukku's Standard Chartered bank account received $41,305 from a victim of a PC compromise scam in the US.

Of this amount, Mukku withdrew $38,000 in cash the same day and used the remaining $3,305 to pay his credit card bills.

A request for the victim's funds to be recalled was sent to Mukku's e-mail account a few days later. Deputy Public Prosecutor Wong Shiau Yin said Mukku had reasonable grounds to believe that the monies were benefits of criminal conduct.

At least two people agreed to help Mukku receive such funds in 2021.

He told Ravikumar Sangavaii and Balusamy Anbazhagan that they needed to open a Standard Chartered bank account to receive these funds from overseas.

Sangavaii received $62,573 from a scam victim in the US in April 2021.

Subsequently, she transferred $36,550 to Mukku's local bank account and $25,000 to another woman, Kathiravan Christy, as well as handed the remainder in cash to him.

Christy withdrew all the $25,000 she received and passed it to Mukku, who in turn handed it to Harmeet.

Anbazhagan received $65,122 from a wire fraud victim in the US in June 2021. He withdrew $64,122 in cash and handed it to Mukku.

Mukku admitted that he handed the sum, along with $1,000 of his own money, to an unknown individual in Little India.

In 2021, the Commercial Affairs Department received information that money had been transferred to Singapore from scam victims in the US.

Describing money laundering as a serious offence that warrants zero tolerance, DPP Wong called for Mukku to be jailed for at least 14 months.

Noting that Mukku had used part of the sum to repay his credit card bills, DPP Wong said: "There can be no doubt that where the accused was motivated by self-interest and greed in his offending, this should receive little sympathy from the court in sentencing."

Court documents do not mention if other people involved in the case have been charged.

For each count of acquiring criminal benefits, an individual can be fined up to $500,000 or jailed for up to 10 years, or both.