Transcript of Remarks by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law on the Sidelines of Berita Harian’s Podcast Interview on the Topic of the Arrest of Foreign Nationals Involved in Recent Money Laundering Case

Question: The news that has received an interest not just locally but globally on the case of money laundering – could you share your comments on the investigations that’s ongoing and perhaps some general comments on the significance of this case.

Minister: We hold ourselves to very high international standards. Our financial services sector is extremely important for us. It's 14% of GDP and 200,000 people that are employed there. And we want to make sure that our financial services sector is world-class, good, strong, because a lot of jobs are at stake. And part of that is to make sure that, when people do illegal things: like when you run an illegal gambling operation outside of Singapore, and you bring the money in and you launder it here, we cannot and we will not tolerate that kind of business.

The investigations are ongoing, I don’t want to say too much, I can’t say too much, partly because we don’t know all the details. But I can tell you that investigations have been going on for months and we have been looking at it carefully, we have been looking at this for months and we decided to move, and we will be strict with specific types of behaviour. When the facts are out you will know what types of behaviour.

Question: Thank you Minister, thank you so much for your time.