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Jailed 1MDB banker sentenced to four more years for cheating

A Singapore court has found former BSI Singapore banker Yeo Jiawei guilty of further charges of money laundering and cheating in relation to billions of dollars allegedly misappropriated from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

Jailed 1MDB banker sentenced to four more years for cheating

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Yeo, who went to jail for 30 months last December as part of a massive global probe into the 1MDB money laundering scandal, has now been sentenced to a further 54 months in prison to run concurrently with his existing sentence, reported Singapore’s The StraitsTimes.

Singaporean Yeo had been employed by Swiss-based BSI between December 2009 and July 2014. He allegedly amassed S$26m (£14.6m, €16.4m, $18m), from various sources, including illicit schemes to defraud BSI while he was an employee.

Earlier this year, it emerged that Yeo used a Seychelles-based company to spend $8.2m (£10m, €7.7m) on Australian Gold Coast property.

He made all the purchases over a one-year period starting with a $1.3m oceanfront apartment in Surfers Paradise.

The four-and-a-half-year sentence is the longest meted out to date by a Singapore court on 1MDB-related charges, which also saw senior banker Yak Yew Chee jailed for 18-weeks last November for forging documents and failing to disclose suspicious transactions related to Jho Low, a Malaysian financier at the centre of the scandal.

Low’s former girlfriend, Australian model Miranda Kerr, has handed over more than $8m worth of jewellery to US authorities as part of its investigation. 

In his earlier conviction, Yeo was sentenced “beyond the norm” after being found guilty of four charges of witness tampering in relations the 1MDB probe.

1MDB scandal

In recent months, the 1MDB investigation, one of the world’s largest money laundering scandals in history has engulfed a number of banks, institutions individuals across jurisdictions such as the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Malaysia.

Earlier this month, the UAE ambassador to the US became embroiled in the scandal after reports that companies connected to him received millions of dollars allegedly stolen from the fund.

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