SINGAPORE — Ex-banker Yeo Jiawei, implicated in a massive money-laundering operation linked to scandal-hit 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), chalked up a fortune of S$26 million during and after nearly five years with his former employer, Swiss private bank BSI, prosecutors said on Monday (Oct 31) at the start of his trial for tampering with witnesses.

Yeo, 33, did so through various means, including “illicit” schemes to swindle his own bank, added prosecutors, who accused him of playing a central role in the “most complex, sophisticated and largest” money-laundering case that the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) has ever come across.

“The case involves several jurisdictions, multiple persons, numerous corporate entities and financial institutions, and voluminous amounts of evidence concerning a large number of transactions and movement of staggering amounts of money across jurisdictions over the course of several years,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Tan Kiat Pheng, adding that nine witnesses would be called to the stand.

Yeo allegedly carried out illegal transactions involving 1MDB when he was a wealth planner with BSI. In May, the Monetary Authority of Singapore ordered BSI to shut down its operations here, citing serious breaches of anti-money-laundering rules.

“During and after his employment with BSI Bank Limited (Singapore) (from December 2009 to July 2014), (Yeo) played a central role in many activities connected with the money laundering case in which the laundering of large sums of money were facilitated or concealed,” said DPP Tan, without elaborating on the link between Yeo’s S$26 million fortune and 1MDB.

Yeo is the first of four Singaporeans implicated in the saga to go on trial. Besides the current nine-day trial for obstructing justice, he faces seven other charges of cheating, forgery and money laundering.

The others — Yak Yew Chee, Yvonne Seah Yew Foong and Kelvin Ang Wee Keng — face charges of graft, forgery and failing to report information on suspicious transactions to the authorities.

Yeo was first interviewed by the CAD in October last year, and arrested on March 17 this year. After being released on bail the following day, Yeo started to contact and meet with key witnesses to hide “incriminatory evidence” of his alleged crimes “in a display of complete and wanton disregard for the law and CAD’s investigations”, DPP Tan said.

Sometime in March, Yeo asked Amicorp Group employee Mr Jose Renato Carvalho Pinto to avoid travelling to Singapore, so as to evade questioning from the CAD. Amicorp provides assurance, administrative, legal, corporate secretarial and support services.

DPP Tan told the court that Yeo had previously carried out illegal transactions through Amicorp, and was worried that CAD would interview the company’s employees, including Mr Pinto and Mr Mun Enci Aloysius.

He also asked Mr Pinto to pass the following message to Mr Aloysius: If the CAD questioned him, he was to say he did not know of Yeo’s dealing with Amicorp.

Around March 27, Yeo arranged to meet his BSI supervisor Kevin Michael Swampillai and his associate Samuel Goh Sze-Wei at the Swiss Club where he allegedly instructed them to lie to CAD about the nature of the funds that Mr Goh had transferred to Bridgerock Investment Inc and GTB Investment Ltd — both of which belonged partially to Yeo and were under investigation then. He told them to pass off the funds being transferred as Mr Goh’s investments. 

At the hearing on Monday, Mr Swampillai’s secretary Tan Ghim Lay, testified that she knew her boss was being investigated by the CAD in October 2015 when he told her to urgently help him buy a Singtel prepaid SIM card.

Ms Tan said she did not ask Mr Swampillai why he wanted a new SIM card and assumed he wanted to contact his family overseas.

“It never occurred to me at that moment that the purchasing of the SIM card was in relation to the (CAD) investigations,” she added.

Another witness, Singtel customer service executive officer Yeo Poh Meng, testified that the CAD had roped her in to trace the call records of the SIM card bought by Ms Tan, as well as two other unidentified numbers. The two other witnesses to take the stand on Monday were from the police’s technology crime forensic branch.

The trial continues on Tuesday.