THE managing director of a company providing corporate
secretarial services, failed to inform authorities in 2007 that he
had been instructed by Mr Arafat Rahman Koko - the son of former
Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia - to transfer and hold some
$3,171,000 in his personal bank account.
The court was told that with his experience, Lim Siew Cheng, 63,
should have suspected the money could be the proceeds of criminal
conduct and should have reported it to the Corrupt Practices
Investigation Bureau or the police.
He did neither and on Monday he pleaded guilty and was fined
$6,000 each for the two offences under laws to prevent
money-laundering.
According to investigations, he got to know Mr Rahman, who
wished to set up a company here, through a mutual acquaintance and
in April 2004, Zasz Trading & Consulting was incorporated.
Together with Mr Rahman, he was also an authorised signatory for
Zasz bank account with United Oversea Bank (UOB).
A year later, he set up a second company for Mr Rahman, known as
Fairhill Consulting, with Lim as the sole authorised signatory of
its UOB account. On Feb 16, 2007, Mr Rahman called Lim to close
down the two companies immediately because of political problems in
Bangladesh. Lim was also instructed to transfer US$900,677 (S$1.2
million) in the Fairhill account and the S$2,013,467 in the Zasz
account into his own bank account.
Madam Khaleda was prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001
to 2006. Her youngest son Rahman is now facing corruption charges
in Bangladesh and is accused of laundering more than US$2.7 million
through bank accounts in Singapore.
-- ST
