SINGAPORE, March 6 — A 43-year-old investment manager has been jailed for five months after helping criminals convert proceeds from a scam into cryptocurrency through the sale of a gold bar.

According to The Straits Times, Jiang Desheng admitted to assisting in transferring benefits from criminal conduct after facilitating a transaction involving a 1kg gold bar later linked to a scam victim in China.

Court documents showed Jiang had met a person known as Mei Se Hui on social media on August 30, 2024. 

Mei asked him to help sell a gold bar in Singapore on behalf of a friend who wanted the proceeds converted into cryptocurrency.

That same day, Jiang was instructed to meet another man who handed him the gold bar along with a receipt showing it had been purchased earlier for S$114,626 (RM354,000).

Two days later, on September 1, Jiang sold the gold bar to a jeweller at People’s Park Complex in Chinatown for S$100,000.

Following instructions from Mei, he then arranged two cryptocurrency transfers to a digital wallet belonging to an unidentified individual. 

Jiang obtained roughly S$96,000 worth of cryptocurrency from a friend in exchange for S$102,000 in cash before transferring the digital assets to the wallet provided.

The court heard Jiang received S$3,200 for helping facilitate the transactions.

Investigations later revealed the gold bar had been bought using money obtained from a scam victim in China.

Singapore police were alerted to the fraud on September 2, 2024, after information surfaced that part of the illicit proceeds had been moved to Singapore. 

Officers traced some of the funds to the same gold bar Jiang had handled.

He was arrested on September 10, 2024. 

Court documents said the man who had passed him the gold bar left Singapore on September 1, the same day the item was sold.