ZHANG Ruijin, one of the 10 individuals embroiled in Singapore’s largest money laundering case, has been sentenced to 15 months’ jail, the longest term handed in this case thus far.

The Chinese national on Tuesday (Apr 30) pleaded guilty to three charges of money laundering and forgery. Five other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Around S$131 million of Zhang’s assets had been seized by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) or issued prohibition of disposal orders, which means that they cannot be sold. He has agreed to forfeit 90 per cent of this amount, or around S$118 million, including cryptocurrencies, properties and vehicles.

The sentence will be backdated to Aug 15, 2023, when Zhang was arrested in an islandwide bust.

Zhang is represented by Eugene Thuraisingam, Suang Wijaya and Sophia Ng of Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, as well as R S Solomon’s Richard Siaw and Jacintha Gopal. 

Of the three charges, one indicated that Zhang had submitted a forged document in 2020 to justify deposits of a total of HK$138.2 million (S$24 million) into a CIMB account from Beiyin, a company incorporated in Hong Kong, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan Lim.

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At the time, Zhang was in Singapore on an employment pass and did not have any verifiable sources of legitimate income.

To comply with money-laundering regulations, CIMB requested Zhang to submit a supporting document to explain the deposits, noted Lim in a statement of facts.

Zhang then submitted a 2020 agreement for the sale of a basement shop unit in Macau to Beiyin, with the document bearing his signature, the signature of a purported buyer named Wang Jian and a Beiyin company stamp.

However, Zhang knew at all material times that the document was forged, said Lim. He was told by one Li Liansheng that if he submitted the document to CIMB, the bank would not investigate the deposits.

Another charge noted that Zhang forged a document – this time, a loan agreement between him and Siu Feng (Hong Kong) Trading Co – to justify the deposit of HK$7.5 million into the CIMB account. The document bore signatures from Zhang and an unnamed representative of Siu Feng, but Zhang had actually obtained it from Li.

Third, Zhang was unable to satisfactorily account where the HK$7.5 million sum came from. Although he admitted they were not loan proceeds from Siu Feng, he still claimed that the money was legitimately derived from his companies in China.

In truth, Lim said, the amount was reasonably suspected to be proceeds from criminal activities.

The forged documents Zhang obtained from Li were therefore part of an “elaborate arrangement” to move funds from China to Singapore, in order to conceal the funds’ source – they were first moved to entities in Hong Kong that were not connected to Zhang, then transferred to Zhang’s Singapore bank accounts.

The prosecution sought a jail term of 14 to 16 months.

Lim said general deterrence should be the key sentencing consideration to maintain Singapore’s financial hub reputation, and that these offences cannot be allowed as they would hit Singapore’s banking system and require additional checks, which could result in higher costs for customers.

Mitigating factors

In mitigation, defence counsel Thuraisingam asked for no more than 14 months’ jail. He said the banks did not suffer financial losses due to Zhang’s forged documents.

He added that his client fully cooperated with the CAD in its investigations, which indicated genuine evidence of remorse, and agreed to forfeit a large portion of his assets.

“All show that this is a man who is sorry for what he has done,” said Thuraisingam, who noted that Zhang was a first-time offender and did not have criminal records in Singapore and other countries.

He added that other foreign nationals involved in the case – Su Haijin and Su Baolin – have been sentenced to 14 months’ jail, and asked that Zhang be sentenced to the same as the amount of assets seized from the three were similar, with Su Haijin’s being S$40 million higher.

When considering the sentence, District Judge Ow Yong Tuck Leong also asked for the amounts laundered by other foreign nationals involved with the case who have been sentenced. 

Su Baolin’s charges, including those taken into consideration, involved more than S$1 million, while Su Haijin’s involved around S$2.4 million. Meanwhile, Zhang’s charges indicated he laundered a total of S$36 million.

Zhang’s other charges

Days before his guilty plea, Zhang was handed five new charges, bringing the total number of charges to eight.

He was charged with receiving HK$56.9 million (S$9.9 million) in his Standard Chartered Bank Singapore (StanChart) account, which is believed to be, in part or in whole, benefits of criminal conduct.

He forged a document that was submitted to StanChart to support the HK$56.9 million sum.

Other charge sheets noted he had possessed a total of HK$151.3 million in a CIMB Bank account that was suspected to benefit from criminal conduct.

Other charges he received were related to forging the documents used to cheat CIMB Bank.

Zhang and his lover, Lin Baoying, were also arrested in Sentosa Cove during the islandwide anti-money laundering operation.

During Zhang’s first court appearance on Aug 16, 2023, he told the court: “You can separate her crimes from me, we are just lovers... You can bail me out, but remand her.”

Lin is currently in remand.

She faces three charges in relation to the ongoing money laundering case – two for forging documents to cheat CIMB Bank and OCBC, as well as one for intentionally perverting the course of justice by falsely telling a CAD officer that her assistant had prepared one of the forged documents.

More than S$3 billion in assets have been seized or frozen in relation to Singapore’s largest money laundering case.

Besides Zhang and Lin, four have been sentenced to between 13 and 14 months’ jail, while one more is expected to plead guilty.

The remaining three are in remand.