In World Money Laundering Report Volume 15 Number 6, we discussed the impact on banks of the investigation by the Monetary Authority of Singapore on banks dealing with PEPs and government money. Also, MAS had made it clear that it intended to ensure that individuals are held liable for their actions where breaches occur as a result of their action or inaction. MAS had previously reported two officers for possible prosecution and, because those matters were sub judice, MAS was unable to give much detail.

But now those two officers have been convicted and jailed, one for two weeks, one for 18 weeks. A third, YEO Jiawei, is awaiting sentencing within the next day or two but on facts that do not relate to 1MDB money. Therefore the facts can be revealed.

YAK Yew Chee was the direct supervisor of Yvonne SEAH Yew Foong at Coutts, then a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland but subsequently sold off, an ignominious position for the bank that was famous for frock-coated doormen, holding the Queen's accounts - and seriously snooty staff, at least in London, but the decline of which had begun when it joined the National Westminster stable, a UK retail bank that expanded far beyond its ability to manage itself and its subsidiaries and ended up selling itself to RBS because, if everyone involved is honest, it had completely lost its way.

Coutts had become RBS's highest-level private banking unit. It had others, including one under its own name which tried to woo clients with free gifts of MP3 players. Not quite the same class of customer as Coutts was looking for. Coutts was looking for people like the good friend of Malaysia's Prime Minister NAJIB. LOW Taek Jho, generally known as Jho Low and his father LOW Hock Peng.

At all material times, YAK was the Low family's private banker, first at Coutts/RBS and then after he moved, with the accounts and SEAH, to BSI. The court heard that YAK received instructions from LOW family members and either acted on them or instructed SEAH to do so.

The case, as tried, against YAK and SEAH revolved around a single series of transactions, after they moved to BSI.

On Friday, 2 November 2012, YAK received instructions to transfer USD153 million from an account in the name of a company controlled by LOW Sr, Good Star, held with Coutts in Zurich. The money was to be transferred to an account in the name of Abu Dhabi-Kuwait-Malaysia Investment Corp, also accessible by LOW Sr, held with BSI in Singapore.

On the following Monday, 5th November, the money was transferred to the personal account of LOW Sr. On 7th November USD150 million was transferred from LOW Sr's personal account to Low Jr's account with BSI. Of that, USD110 was sent to a corporate account in the name of Selune, a firm that LOW Jr owns (or owned) via nominees.

A BSI compliance officer questioned the transfer saying it was "nebulous to say the least and not acceptable in Compliance's view" . LOW Jr wrote an e-mail that he had decided to give his father a lump sum "as a matter of cultural respect and good fortune that arises from respect." The prosecutor, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nathaniel Khng, said that LOW Jr said that his father decided to keep a token sum and give the rest of the money back. It seems that this was sufficient to avoid a report of suspicious transactions.

In other charges, YAK was found to have produced and issued a false reference letter in which, without the bank's authority, YAK, aided by SEAH, saying that the LOW family was a "client of good standing" with "cumulative wealth" of USD1,630 million. It was found that a second false reference letter was produced and issued.

The prosecutor accepted that SEAH acted on the instructions of YAK, and the LOW family as their most important client, but that in doing so she "knowingly breached internal regulations" and also protected "the significant bonuses that SEAH earned."

* YAK was sentenced to 18 weeks in jail, fined SGD24,000 and ordered to surrender SGD5.5 million "to demonstrate his genuine contrition."
* SEAH was sentenced to two weeks in jail and fined SGD10,000. The Court heard that her salary plus bonus from BSI between 2010 and 2015 amounted to SGD1.8 million in salary plus SGD2.25 million in bonuses.
* BSI in Singapore by MAS and the remnants of the (notionally?) Swiss bank is being sold to EFG International, another small Swiss-based operation.

YEO is also charged with a range of other offences including money laundering and cheating. His trial on those charges is expected sometime next spring.