SINGAPORE – In exchange for cash, a man became a “consultant” in a scheme by helping to set up a bank account that received over $338,000 in proceeds from an investment scam.
Daniel Lars Stevenson, 40, was sentenced to eight months’ jail on May 14.
He pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a conspiracy with his recruiter and friend, Timothy Solomon Patrick, 36, to deal with another person’s benefits of criminal conduct.
The two men committed the offence despite having reasonable grounds to believe that the money was linked to unlawful activities.
Stevenson is the fourth and final man in the case to be dealt with in court.
The other three men – Timothy, Timothy’s father Patrick Lourdasamy and Patrick’s friend Kamaraj Gopal Krishnan – were earlier ordered to spend time behind bars.
Timothy had recruited the others to open bank accounts that received scam proceeds totalling more than $1.3 million. He was sentenced to 3½ years’ jail on April 3.
Patrick, then 64, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail, while Kamaraj, then 53, received a 12-week jail term.
Court documents did not disclose the men’s nationalities.
For the current case, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jason Chua told the court that in either 2017 or 2018, Stevenson and Timothy went to a Boat Quay pub where they met a man known as Harry Turner.
Turner, who claimed to live in Cambodia when he was not in Singapore, said he was always on the lookout for people with expertise in areas such as e-commerce to provide “consultancy services” to his clients in the financial services industry.
Timothy then met Turner alone on another occasion to find out more about such services.
He was told that the scheme would involve him recruiting others to act as “consultants”.
The consultants would set up sole proprietorships and opened bank accounts in their names.
Turner said he would arrange for the transfer of funds to the accounts.
The “consultants” would then withdraw the funds and keep a 3 per cent cut, while Timothy would take his share of 2 per cent.
He will pass the remainder to others working for Turner in Singapore.
After the meeting, Timothy recruited Patrick, Kamaraj and Stevenson as “consultants”.
Stevenson created two firms – Freja Global Trade & Consultancy and Inter-Trade Global Associates – and set up accounts at two different banks.
DPP Chua said: “In the course of…investigations, there was no documentary evidence provided by the accused persons to the (authorities) to show that they had provided any genuine services to (Turner).”
Two Australians in their home country were later defrauded in an investment scam and transferred more than $338,000 to Inter-Trade’s bank account.
Without revealing details, the prosecutor said that the money has since “dissipated”.
Court documents do not disclose how Stevenson’s offence came to light, but he admitted to the authorities that he had suspicions about Turner when he first talked to him.
DPP Chua said: “He did not know (Turner’s) true identity. Save for getting (Turner’s) purported LinkedIn profile, which has since been taken down, and purported business address, he did not take any other steps to ascertain (Turner’s) true identity before helping him with the ‘consultancy services’.”
The court heard that in April 2019, Stevenson and Timothy had also received recall requests from a bank linked to Freja’s account over some funds transferred to it. The amount was not disclosed in court documents.
The two men discussed their concerns on WhatsApp and Stevenson became increasingly aware of the suspicious nature of their agreement with Turner.
Despite this, the scam proceeds totalling more than $338,000 were transferred to Inter-Trade’s bank account three months later.
On May 14, the DPP said that Stevenson had handed over more than $10,000 in compensation to the authorities – an amount that represented the 3 per cent commission he had earned.
- Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times’ court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts.
Join ST’s WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.