A Citibank relationship manager whose forgery activities helped spark Singapore's largest money laundering investigation has been sentenced to two years imprisonment. Wang Qiming, a 28-year-old Chinese national, received his sentence on October 23rd after pleading guilty to multiple charges including forgery, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
The case connects directly to the massive $3 billion money laundering probe that resulted in the arrest of ten foreigners in 2023. Wang specifically assisted three of these individuals - Cambodian national Su Baolin and Chinese nationals Vang Shuiming and Su Haijin - by creating fraudulent documents to conceal the source of their funds.
Court documents reveal that Wang's criminal activities began in December 2020 when he helped Su Baolin arrange a private cryptocurrency sale involving nearly 1.5 million USDT units. When the sale proceeds appeared in Su Baolin's Standard Chartered account from a personal account rather than a remittance company as planned, Wang fabricated a loan agreement to explain the funds. He subsequently collected $481,678 in cash from the sales agent and delivered it to Su Baolin's residence.
As a relationship manager, Wang's responsibilities included responding to inquiries from Citibank's anti-money laundering team about large deposits. Instead of fulfilling this duty, he systematically created false remittance receipts for his clients. For Chinese national Xie Yuyan, who received two transfers of nearly $1 million each from Indonesia, Wang forged two remittance receipts using Microsoft Word after finding unrelated templates online. He repeated similar forgeries for other clients, ultimately creating fraudulent documents for deposits totaling over $8.5 million.
The prosecution emphasized that Wang had "turned his duty on its head" by actively defeating the bank's anti-money laundering safeguards. His actions came to light when authorities noticed suspicious transactions involving forged documents in 2021, ultimately triggering the wider money laundering investigation.
In a further attempt to conceal his activities, Wang deleted the WhatsApp application from his phone when police came to investigate in October 2021, permanently erasing crucial evidence of his communications with clients about the fraudulent transactions.
Despite defense arguments for a shorter sentence of 7-11 months, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt described Wang's conduct as "egregious," noting he had exploited his position to bypass banking safeguards and deceive his employer about the legitimacy of substantial fund transfers.
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