SINGAPORE, Jan 11 — Former Falcon bank’s Singapore branch manager Jens Fred Sturzenegger was sentenced to 28 weeks’ jail and fined S$128,000 (RM398,000) today for failing to report suspicious transactions and for providing false information to the authorities as part of Singapore’s 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) money-laundering probe.
The 42-year-old Swiss national, the fifth person charged in Singapore under the 1MDB probe, was convicted of six charges for failing to comply with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) directions, failing to report suspicious transactions, and giving false information to a public servant. Another 10 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Sturzenegger had consented to Falcon’s failure to report to the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) a suspicious inflow of US$1.265 billion (about RM5.66 billion) into two bank accounts in March 2013.
Last October, the MAS ordered Falcon’s Singapore branch to close its operations here following investigations into transactions related to 1MDB. The Swiss private bank also had its merchant bank status in Singapore withdrawn.
One of the two bank accounts belonged to Granton Property Holding Limited, from which US$378 million was transferred to Dragon Market Limited on March 25, 2013. The money was used in connection with a potentially criminal act which Sturzenegger was aware of, but failed to disclose to a suspicious transaction reporting officer.
Sturzenegger also gave false information to a MAS officer on Feb 17 last year, which were related to transactions made in March 2013 through four bank accounts under Falcon. He told the officer that the bank had asked the beneficial owner of these accounts for supporting documentation and the owner had done so. But in reality, he knew that was false as Malaysian financier Jho Low — a central figure in the 1MDB investigations — had provided the documentation using the email account [email protected] and was not the beneficial owner on record.
Knowing that Low had used the email account [email protected] to communicate with Falcon bank, Sturzenegger also lied to CAD officers so they would not probe connections between him and Low.
Sturzenegger also told the CAD last September that he had never met Low, when in fact he did so on at least two occasions.
Other parties linked to Singapore’s investigations into the money-laundering probe have also been convicted last year. Yak Yew Chee and Yvonne Seah Yew Foong were convicted of helping to forge documents and failing to report suspicious transactions. Yak was sentenced to 18 weeks’ jail and fined S$24,000, while Seah was handed two weeks’ jail and a S$10,000 fine.
Last month, Yeo Jiawei was sentenced to 30 months’ jail on four charges of witness tampering. He faces seven other charges involving cheating, money laundering and forgery. Yeo had a close relationship with Low, who is considered by Singapore police to be a “key person of interest” in the money-laundering probe. — TODAY
