Woman charged with illegal transfers involving funds from scam victims
SINGAPORE – A woman who allegedly provided illegal transfers involving money from victims of online scams was hauled to court on Tuesday (Jan 19).
Maslenie Mohamed Ramli, 38, was slapped with two charges under the Moneylenders Act and one charge under the Payment Services Act.
According to court documents for the charge under the Payment Services Act, she allegedly provided domestic money transfer services and received $4,855 across 13 transactions to her POSB account in May last year for the purpose of carrying out transactions to a local bank account.
She did not have a valid licence to do so and was not an exempt payment provider.
The police said she claimed to have responded to a job advertisement online and was employed as an account personnel to perform the bank transfers.
Maslenie was allegedly promised a daily commission for assisting in providing payment services using her bank account.
The funds, however, were found to be proceeds of crime from victims of online scams.
The two charges under the Moneylenders Act pertain to her allegedly assisting an unlicensed moneylender by providing her ATM cards to him in 2018.
She told the court on Tuesday that she is disputing the charge under the Payment Services Act and would like to apply for legal aid.
District Judge Terence Tay said she is to complete her legal aid application within the next three weeks.
Maslenie is currently out on $10,000 bail. She is expected to be back in court on Feb 18.
In a release on Monday, the police cautioned job seekers to be wary of advertisements promising the convenience of working from home and being paid unreasonably high salaries for relatively easy job responsibilities.
“Legitimate businesses will not require the job seekers to utilise their own bank accounts to receive monies on the businesses’ behalf,” it said.
“These acts are common ruse used by scammers to have individuals carry out illicit payment transfers on their behalf.”
Members of the public are advised to always reject requests by others to use their bank accounts.
If convicted of carrying on a business providing payment services without a licence, a person may be fined up to $125,000, jailed for up to three years, or both.