LIN Baoying, 44, the only woman among the 10 foreigners nabbed in last year’s billion-dollar money laundering bust, was handed a jail term of 15 months on Thursday (May 30).
This came after the Chinese national pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery and one count of money laundering.
These charges aside, she faces another seven counts of money laundering, perverting the course of justice and forgery, which were taken into consideration by the judge for sentencing purposes.
Lin, who holds passports issued by Dominica, Cambodia and Turkey as well, has also agreed to forfeit to the State 90 per cent of the S$170.5 million of assets that have been seized from her. Vehicles, cryptocurrencies, real estate properties, jewellery and cash were among the assets seized, including two houses worth S$28.9 million at Sentosa Cove and a S$29.8 million shophouse on Amoy Street.
Her jail term would be backdated to last August when she was arrested.
Her counsel Chew Kei-Jin pointed out in her mitigation that it was a case of her seeking to deposit funds with the bank and no loss was suffered by any of the lenders.
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He contended that she should be handed a sentence not exceeding 13 months, less than those of two fellow money launderers Vang Shuiming and Su Haijin, who were sentenced respectively to jail terms of 13 months and six weeks, and 14 months. In comparison, Vang had many more charges taken into consideration than Lin, while Su had resisted arrest.
These, however, were rebutted by the prosecution, who pointed out that the financial institutions suffered reputational loss for being associated with money laundering. Also, Lin’s laundered amounts were higher than that of the other fellow launderers in the case, except her lover Zhang Ruijin. The court was thus urged to jail Lin for between 15 and 17 months.
Among the 10 that have been charged in this case where assets worth about S$3 billion have been seized, Lin is the eighth who has been dealt with by the court.
Together with Zhang, Lin was arrested at a bungalow on Pearl Island in Sentosa Cove last August in an islandwide raid.
On Apr 30, Zhang was sentenced to 15 months’ jail, the longest jail term meted out in the case so far. He pleaded guilty to one money laundering charge and two forgery charges.
Seven foreigners – Su Wenqiang, Su Haijin, Su Baolin, Wang Baosen, Vang, Zhang and Chen Qingyuan – were sentenced to between 13 and 15 months’ jail each. They have forfeited over S$563.2 million in assets to the State so far in Singapore’s largest money laundering case.
Wang Dehai, a Cypriot, and Su Jianfeng, a Vanuatu national, are the remaining two who will be pleading guilty in June.
