S’pore-based money launderers cited with terrorist financiers, drug lords in probe

Several people linked to Singapore's biggest case of money laundering have been named in an international media investigation known as the Dubai Unlocked project.

- David Sun

They were identified as having purchased millions of dollars worth of property in Dubai alongside terrorist financiers, drug lords and kleptocrats.

Dubai Unlocked involved journalists from more than 70 media outlets across the world, including The Straits Times, AI Jazeera, Forbes, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Times.

The reports are based on a massive leak of records of hundreds of thousands of properties in Dubai and information about their ownership or usage, mostly from 2020 and 2022.

The data was obtained by the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies, a non-profit organisation based in the United States, and shared with Norwegian financial outlet E24 and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which coordinated the investigations over the course of more than six months.

The leak revealed that former Afghan Parliament Speaker Mir Rahman Rahmani and his son Ajmal spent more than $15 million on real estate in Dubai.

Both were sanctioned in 2023 for misappropriating US government aid, allegedly siphoning off millions of dollars in American reconstruction funds after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Nikkei Asia reported on May 15 that the leak contained the names of several people linked to sanctioned terrorist organisations.