Last $3b money laundering accused set to plead guilty handed 4 more charges, including faking job titles

The last person in Singapore’s largest money laundering case scheduled to plead guilty has been handed new charges alleging he faked his employment as a brand manager and a business consultant.

Cypriot national Wang Dehai, 35, was back in court on June 4 to receive four additional charges under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

Three charges were for allegedly faking job titles between 2018 and 2022, and one charge was for allegedly hiring a housekeeper without a valid work pass.

Wang, who has been in remand for more than nine months since his arrest on Aug 15, 2023, will be the last person in the case to plead guilty on June 7.

According to the new charges, between 2018 and 2022, Wang conspired with Su Yongcan and one Phua Cheng Wan to make three false statements relating to his applications for a work pass.

Phua, in his capacity as the director of a firm called Craft Digital, allegedly authorised his human resource department to apply for an employment pass on Wang’s behalf.

These applications stated that Wang would be employed as a brand manager or a business consultant of the firm, when he had no intention to work there.

Su is Wang’s brother-in-law. Su, along with Wang’s cousin Wang Huoqiang, have left Singapore. Warrants of arrest and Interpol red notices have been issued against both men.

The fourth new charge claims that Wang Dehai, with his wife Su Caihuang, hired a housekeeper for his condominium apartment at The Marq on Paterson Hill, near Orchard Road, without a valid work pass from February 2019 to August 2023.

On June 4, a prosecutor from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said in court that Wang Dehai’s plead-guilty mention will go ahead as scheduled, and the four new charges will be taken into consideration during sentencing.

He previously faced two money laundering charges, and now faces six charges in total.

It is alleged that he used proceeds from an illegal online gambling service – which is based in the Philippines and is for customers in China – to buy The Marq apartment for $23 million in November 2019.

He also allegedly possessed $2.3 million from illegal remote gambling offences.

Wang Dehai was placed on China’s wanted list in 2017 for alleged links to an illegal gambling gang. In the same notice, two other men in the money laundering case – Su Jianfeng and Su Wenqiang – were also named as major suspects.

Wang Dehai was among 10 foreigners arrested in August 2023 in a money laundering probe that saw more than $3 billion in assets seized.

Of these, seven men and one woman have each been jailed for between 13 and 15 months.

Five of them have been deported.

On May 6, Su Wenqiang and Wang Baosen, both 32, were deported to Cambodia after serving about 8½ months of their 13-month jail terms.

Cambodian national Su Baolin, 42, and Cypriot national Su Haijin, 41, were deported to Cambodia on May 25 and 28, respectively.

Turkish national Vang Shuiming, 43, was deported to Japan on June 1.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) had said in April that the “location of deportation (of the convicts) is dependent on the admissibility of the foreigner based on his or her valid passport”.

On June 2, ICA said the latest three to be deported were escorted directly from the prison to the airport for deportation and were not permitted to return to their residences to collect their belongings.

All five deported men, who are originally from Fujian, China, cannot re-enter Singapore.

Vanuatu national Su Jianfeng, 36, the other accused whose case is before the courts, faces 14 charges and is expected to plead guilty on June 6.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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