At The Courts 'Second in Command' Of Illegal Cross-Border Money Transfer Operation Jailed

Mastermind of operation still at large, having fled the country after police raid in 2023

- Samuel Devaraj

From its premises in Geylang, a team operated an illegal business buying and selling large amounts of foreign currency and cryptocurrency.

Between Feb 1 and 23, 2023, the team provided cross-border money transfer services involving Singapore and foreign currencies of at least $35 million in value over no fewer than 430 transactions.

Following a police raid on the premises on Feb 23, 2023, the mastermind behind the operation, Singaporean Low Han Chuan, 44, fled the country.

On June 26, Javiour Chia Kit Hou, 34, whom the prosecution described as the second in command, was sentenced to 10 months' jail.

He had pleaded guilty earlier to one charge of abetment of the provision of an unlicensed payment service.

Deputy public prosecutors Shamini Joseph and Kiera Yu said that at some point, before June 2021, Low was introduced to a director of Sir Money Changer, a family-run company.

Low expressed an interest in starting his own money-changing and remittance business, and, after a discussion, the director agreed to let Low operate his business autonomously under Sir Money Changer's name from its premises at 12 Lorong 1 Geylang in exchange for $14,000 monthly.

Low would hire his own staff and pay their salaries, and while the contributions to the staff's Central Provident Fund accounts would be paid by Sir Money Changer, Low would have to reimburse it.

He was also required to record and submit the money-changing and remittance transactions performed at the Geylang premises to Sir Money Changer so that annual accounting returns could be filed together.

Low began business operations on the premises in September 2021.