Singapore considers an AML law for ‘victims’ of cybercrime

It’s human to feel for someone who reports their digital identity was stolen for financial crimes but sometimes the supposed victim was in on the scam.

Singapore is writing legislation that that would treat those people like cybercriminals the same as people organizing online fraud that misuses Singpass digital IDs.

There already are at least two anti-money laundering (AML) laws on the books that address witting accomplices, but they require the government to prove the little fish in the police net knew what they were doing was wrong.

A person might agree to let someone use their bank account, turning a blind eye to the harms that ensue. The person might get a small sum from the ringleaders as a reward.

Such cases are the flip side of the kind of cases most consumers hear about – the times when through software or social engineering, someone loses control of their biometric identifiers or other credentials.

A pair of proposed laws are being debated in Singapore to curb the 660.7 million Singaporean dollars (US$486.8 million) that the Singaporean Today news publisher says was lost to cyber scams in 2022.

Some fraction of that total, apparently unknown, involves people who took actions that they knew might enrich them but would almost certainly financially harm others.

Analysis of the AML bills by legal trade publication JD Supra, shows that they are intended to make it harder for someone to disingenuously contend they are a victim, too.

One of the new bills would hold responsible anyone who “rashly” agrees to get involved in a criminal enterprise, according to JD Supra. Singapore’s penal code, says the publisher, defines rashly as when someone acts despite knowing there is a risk that they will be participating in a criminal act.

The other legislation holds people responsible for negligence. A reasonable person would know that they should take an action to stop an apparent crime but did not. In this case, the law would require individual to act more like a bank complying with KYC and AML regulations.

Article Topics

AML  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  KYC  |  Singapore  |  Singpass