Public Prosecutor v Merlur Binte Ahmad

• Judge: Ong Chin Rhu
• Judgment Date: 27 December 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGDC 301
• Citation: [2022] SGDC 301
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 04 January 2023
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No 908712 of 2019 and 15 Others, Magistrate’s Appeals No 9097 of 2022-01
• Plaintiff Counsel: Lee Zu Zhao (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Andre Darius Jumabhoy and Low Ying Ning Elaine (Peter Low Chambers LLC)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Possessing benefits of criminal conduct,Removing benefits of criminal conduct from jurisdiction,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing
• Hearing Date: 04 November 2020,05 November 2020,20 October 2020,22 October 2020,27 October 2021,14 July 2021,10 June 2021,06 May 2021,26 April 2021,25 January 2021,17 May 2022,19 January 2022

District Judge Ong Chin Rhu:

The Accused, Ms Merlur Binte Ahmad, claimed trial to 16 charges under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (Cap 65A) ("CDSA”) for possessing and removing from jurisdiction various sums of money, having reasonable grounds to believe that the monies were another person’s benefits from criminal conduct.

At the conclusion of the trial, I found the Accused guilty and convicted her on 14 charges. The Accused was granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal (“DATA”) on the two remaining charges as follows: the prosecution declined to further prosecute the accused on the charge in DAC-908719-2019 (the 8th charge) and applied to withdraw the charge; and the Accused was acquitted by the Court at the close of the defence’s case of the charge in DAC-908726-2019 (the 15th charge).

I sentenced the Accused to a global term of 30 weeks’ imprisonment. The Accused being dissatisfied with her conviction and sentence has filed an appeal. She is currently on bail pending the hearing of her appeal.

I had provided brief oral grounds at the conclusion of the trial to explain some of my findings and my decision on the charges, including my decision to acquit the Accused on the 15th charge.¹ As there was no appeal against acquittal, I shall focus, in these grounds, on elaborating on my reasons for conviction and sentence on the 14 charges which the Accused was found guilty of.

The Charges

The Accused was convicted on seven charges under section 47(3) of the CDSA (“the possession charges”) for having in her possession monies in her bank account, having reasonable grounds to believe that the monies were another person’s benefits from criminal conduct.² These seven charges were similarly framed, save as to the details relating to the date of the offence and the amount of money involved. As such, I shall set out in full the first of such charges against the Accused, followed by a table containing the salient details of each of the seven charges for reference:

DAC-908712-2019 (1st charge)

You, […] are charged that you, between 17 and 18 July 2018, in Singapore, did possess property, namely, a sum of S$20,000, in your bank account (DBS account no. XXX-X-XXXXXX), having reasonable grounds to believe that the said property was one Mark’s benefits from criminal conduct, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 47(3) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (Chapter 65A) and punishable under Section 47(6)(a) of the said Act.

No.	DAC No.	Date	Amount
1st	908712-2019	between 17 and 18 July 2018	S$20,000
2nd	908713-2019	around 19 July 2018	S$20,000
3rd	908714-2019	between 22 and 23 July 2018	S$18,000
4th	908715-2019	around 30 July 2018	S$2,000
5th	908716-2019	between 2 and 3 August 2018	S$20,000
6th	908717-2019	around 10 August 2018	S$300
7th	908718-2019	around 10 August 2018	S$2,700

The other seven charges on which the Accused was convicted were those under section 47(2)(b) of the CDSA (“the removal charges”) for removing sums of money from jurisdiction, having reasonable grounds to believe that the monies were another person’s benefits from criminal conduct. Again, these seven charges were similarly framed, save as to the details relating to the date of the offence, the amount of money involved and the transferee of the sums. I shall therefore set out in full the first of such charges against the Accused, followed by a table containing the salient details of each of the seven charges for reference:

DAC-908720-2019 (9th charge)

You, […] are charged that you, on 18th July 2018, in Singapore, did remove from jurisdiction property, namely, a sum of S$19,800, having reasonable grounds to believe that said property was one Mark’s benefits from criminal conduct, by making an overseas telegraphic transfer of the said sum of S$19,800 to ‘Hunterman Enterprise’ in Malaysia, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 47(2)(b) punishable under Section 47(6)(a) of the of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, Chapter 65A.

No.	DAC No.	Date	Amount	Transferee
9th	908720-2019	18 July 2018	S$19,800	Hunterman Enterprise in Malaysia
10th	908721-2019	19 July 2018	S$19,800	Hunterman Enterprise in Malaysia
11th	908722-2019	23 July 2018	S$17,500	Hunterman Enterprise in Malaysia
12th	908723-2019	23 July 2018	S$425	Omoragbon Aideyan in Malaysia
13th	908724-2019	30 July 2018	S$1,960	Omoragbon Aideyan in Malaysia
14th	908725-2019	3 August 2018	S$19,960	Hunterman Enterprise in Malaysia
16th	908727-2019	10 August 2018	S$2,975	Hunterman Enterprise in Malaysia

Undisputed facts and the issues at trial Agreed and undisputed facts

The prosecution and defence had agreed to a Statement of Agreed Facts (“ASOF”), as well as admitted various documents by consent, for the purposes of the trial. I shall broadly adopt the contents of the ASOF in summarising and setting out the background and undisputed facts in this case.³

The Accused’s background

The Accused was the holder of the DBS bank account reflected in the 1st to 8th charges (“the DBS Account”). At the time of the offences, the Accused was about 48 years old. She was a divorced mother of two children, a 20-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son. The Accused’s highest qualification was the O-levels and she worked as an assistant manager in the operations department of a Japanese marine paint company, earning a monthly salary of about $2000. Her main duties were to handle orders from overseas clients, including those from Sri Lanka, Dubai, the United States and the United Kingdoms, as well as deal with matters relating to invoicing.⁴

The Accused’s relationship with Mark

The Accused had gotten to know an online persona going by the moniker “Wayne Mark” (“Mark”) through Facebook soon after her divorce in 2012. Over time, the Accused fell in love with him. From 2016 until July 2018, the Accused and Mark communicated via Yahoo Messenger (“YM”). After YM’s services were discontinued in July 2018, they communicated via Google Hangout. It was not disputed that Exhibit D2 contained the details of the Accused’s communications with Mark, over YM, for the period 1 January 2018 to 18 July 2018. It was also not disputed that these messages were not furnished to the police by the Accused when she was investigated in 2018.⁵

The transfer of monies into the Accused’ s account

It was not disputed that the transactions set out in the charges arose out of Mark’s request to the Accused to help transfer sums she received in the DBS Account to two bank accounts in Malaysia.

Further, it was not disputed that the sums set out in the 1st to 8th charges were in fact transferred into the DBS Account by the following female Malaysians who were victims of crime: Tan Hong Cheng (“Tan”), 29 years old at the material time; Joy Tey Xi Le (“Tey”), 22 years old at the material time; and Koh Kah Ying (“Koh”), 29 years old at the material time.

Each of the victims had been befriended on Facebook by persons purporting to be male. They were then deceived by these persons into transferring various sums of money to a number of different bank accounts, including the DBS Account. The details of the transfers into the DBS Account were as follows:

S/N	Date	Victim	Amount	Charge
1	17 July 2018	Tey	S$20,000	1st
2	19 July 2018	Tey	S$20,000	2nd
3	22 July 2018	Tey	S$18,000	3rd
4	30 July 2018	Tey	S$2,000	4th
5	2 August 2018	Tey	S$20,000	5th
6	10 August 2018	Tan	S$300	6th
7	10 August 2018	Tan	S$2,700	7th
8	15 August 2018	Koh	S$3,300	8th 6

Tan and Tey filed police reports on 14 August (Exhibit P1) and 22 October 2018 (Exhibit P2) respectively in relation to the incidents of cheating.

At the time the transfers were made by the victims, the Accused was not aware that the DBS Account was being used to receive such monies, and was not part of, or had any knowledge of, the deception practised on the victims.

The Accused transferred the sums out of jurisdiction

Around the time that the transfers were made to the DBS Account, the Accused was contacted by Mark to transfer the monies into two overseas bank accounts on the pretext of helping him resolve his tax issues. The Accused complied with Mark’s requests and performed transfers of the sums of money stated in the 9th to 16th charges into the respective bank accounts in Malaysia:

S/N	Date	Recipient	Jurisdiction of Recipient	Amount	Charge
1	18 July 2018	Hunterman Enterprise	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	S$19,800	9th
2	19 July 2018	Hunterman Enterprise	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	S$19,800	10th
3	23 July 2018	Hunterman Enterprise	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	S$17,500	11th
4	23 July 2018	Omoragbon Aideyan	Selangor, Malaysia	S$425

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