Portrait of a suspect in the SGD 3 billion money laundering case in Singapore.

Recently, a news from Montenegro has shocked the Chinese community.

According to Montenegrin media, Wang Shuiming, one of the masterminds behind the SGD 3 billion (approximately RMB 16.2 billion) money laundering case in Singapore, has been arrested!

This case is one of the largest money laundering cases in Singapore's history.

According to the "Shin Min Daily News", citing sources, Wang Shuiming had set up a gambling website in the Philippines between 2012 and 2013, and was one of the first Fujianese to engage in online gambling in the Philippines.

He is expected to stand trial in Montenegro for organizing illegal online gambling.

Shocking Money Laundering Case

On the evening of August 15, 2023, Singapore staged a tense scenario akin to a blockbuster movie—over 400 police officers urgently assembled to conduct raids on 9 ultra-luxurious villas and apartments.

The results were shocking—the local police seized 94 properties and 50 cars worth over SGD 815 million (approximately RMB 4.4 billion), along with 35 related bank accounts, SGD 23 million (approximately RMB 124 million) in cash, over 250 luxury bags and watches, more than 120 electronic devices, over 270 pieces of jewelry, two gold bars, and 11 virtual asset information documents.

In this operation, a total of 10 suspects were arrested, including Wang Shuiming. He was caught by the police on the spot in a high-end mansion near Orchard Road.

This operation was "long-planned" by the Singapore police.

As early as 2023, the police had received intelligence and then noticed a group of people suspected of being involved in laundering the illegal proceeds of organized crime overseas (including fraud and online gambling) through illegal means into Citibank accounts in the USA.

After 3 months of secret investigations, an astonishing money laundering network gradually emerged.

The police discovered that this money laundering gang used a variety of methods, with the dirty money coming from illegal online gambling platforms in Southeast Asia, illegal lending businesses, and online fraud.

On one hand, they frequently transferred this dirty money between multiple shell companies, then purchased luxury cars and real estate in Singapore, UAE, UK, etc., to obscure the origins of the black money.

On the other hand, they bypassed foreign exchange controls through foreign trade orders, pricing extremely low-cost products very high, and even used service trade, signing contracts under the guise of design drawings, and completing the money laundering process without delivering goods.

Moreover, they also used cryptocurrencies for money laundering activities, with one wallet one key, making the flow of funds untraceable.

Wang Shuiming's Crimes

As the case further proceeded, the true identities of the suspects came to light.

According to the Singapore police, there were a total of 27 suspects in the case, and the 10 main suspects arrested that night mostly held multiple passports.

After arriving in Singapore, they forged many documents, such as bank statements, house sale proofs, and corporate executive ID proofs, to deceive the scrutiny of Singapore banks.

However, it was precisely because of the fake documents that a bank discovered the issue, which brought a breakthrough to the police investigation.

According to local laws, since these 10 people were only charged with "money laundering" in Singapore, they were sentenced to 13 to 17 months of imprisonment and were paroled early for good behavior and deported.

In addition to the arrested suspects, another 17 people fled Singapore. By the end of 2024, 15 of them had been dealt with, agreeing to return assets worth about SGD 1.85 billion (approximately RMB 9.98 billion) to Singapore and were banned from re-entering Singapore. The remaining 2 suspects are still at large, with about SGD 145 million (approximately RMB 780 million) of illegal assets seized or under a prohibition order.

As a key figure in the case, Wang Shuiming was arrested and initially tried to cover up his crimes, claiming to the Singapore police that the funds in his account came from a loan business.

However, as the investigation deepened, his lies were punctured one by one, and he eventually had to admit that the funds actually came from a casino in the Philippines. The assets in his four bank accounts in Singapore were identified as criminal proceeds, and about SGD 240 million (approximately RMB 1.3 billion) of the seized SGD 266 million assets were handed over.

After a series of investigations and trials, on May 14, 2024, Wang Shuiming was sentenced by a Singapore court to 13 months and 6 weeks in prison. He pleaded guilty to two counts of money laundering and one count of submitting forged documents to a bank. After serving his sentence, he was deported from Singapore that year.

But the legal sanctions against Wang Shuiming did not end there. Before being arrested by the Singapore police, Wang Shuiming had already been wanted by our police for cross-border gambling.

In May 2022, the Boshan Branch of the Zibo City Public Security Bureau in Shandong Province announced that it had successfully cracked down on the Hengbo Baowang Group, which was engaged in illegal gambling websites for profit.

In the operation, the police arrested 131 suspects, seized, froze, and recovered more than 10 million RMB of involved funds, and among the 9 suspects illegally staying abroad, one was Wang Shuiming.

After leaving Singapore, Wang Shuiming moved between countries. This year, he was arrested by border police at Tivat Airport in Montenegro.

It is reported that he was traveling from the Maldives to Montenegro on a private plane, but he did not expect the Montenegrin police to be waiting for him at the airport based on information from the Interpol database.

Wang Shuiming's "Path to Wealth"

Wang Shuiming started his "journey of sin" early on, with a cunning and ruthless style, adept at exploiting people's eagerness to get rich quickly.

In his early years, he set up Hengbo Baowang in the Philippines, carefully designing a seemingly professional and legitimate gambling website to attract people wanting to make quick money.

At the same time, he employed a large number of technical and customer service personnel to monitor the operation of the website in real time and promptly answer the victims' questions.

Just like the current online fraud methods, he would use fake identities to build relationships with the victims and manipulate their psychology.

He also manipulated gambling results and other methods to ensure he could always win. To make the victims lower their guard, he usually let them win some small money first, then enticed them to increase their investment.

Under Wang Shuiming's control, his online gambling group rapidly expanded, almost monopolizing the online gambling agency business in the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, and other places at that time.

At its peak, Wang Shuiming had 7 to 10 online gambling groups under him, with over 10,000 employees, earning him nicknames like "Ming Da" and "Da Ming Zong". According to the "Shin Min Daily News", the monthly expenses he paid for employee salaries were over 100 million RMB.

To find a "legal" way for his illegal funds, Wang Shuiming turned his attention to Singapore.

Using his multiple passports, he opened financial accounts in Singapore, attempting to launder huge amounts of money. This further led him down the path of sin.

His masterminded money laundering case in Singapore not only caused a huge impact on Singapore's financial system but also attracted widespread international attention.

A financial planner told Global People reporters that after the incident, to rebuild confidence in the financial market, Singapore strengthened its regulation and scrutiny, clearing some high-net-worth clients of poor quality.

By the end of 2024, the Singapore government released the "National Anti-Money Laundering Strategy" in response to increasingly complex money laundering activities, comprehensively strengthening anti-money laundering efforts. On the international cooperation level, Singapore actively participated in international organizations such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

On March 1, 2021, the Criminal Law Amendment (XI) that took effect in our country amended Article 303 of the Criminal Law, increasing the penalties for the crime of operating a casino and adding the crime of organizing participation in gambling abroad.

Now that Wang Shuiming has been arrested, if he is extradited back to the country, he will face severe legal punishment.