Woman jailed for funnelling stolen funds to Nigerians

SINGAPORE - She suspected that her new "friends" were involved in drugs or benefiting from criminal activities, but she still opened bank accounts that were used by them to receive stolen money.

Yesterday, 31-year-old Jorah Fairuzyanni Abdullah was sentenced to five years and eight months' jail after admitting to nine charges involving $641,950.

The unemployed single mother of two faced 25 charges in total.

After a friend introduced her to a group of Nigerians in Malaysia, she opened three bank accounts in her name that the Nigerians used to funnel stolen money, the court heard.

In all, she received $1.5 million in stolen money, but police managed to recover a total of only $140,000 from her.

Two years ago, on Sept 12, $128,994 was deposited into Jorah's UOB account from a Hong Kong firm called Profit Track Investment.

However, Profit Track did not authorise the payment.

In fact, a Hong Kong bank had been cheated into sending the money to Jorah's bank account.

The same day, she withdrew $129,000 and transferred the money to her friend.

The two of them then took a taxi to Malaysia to meet the Nigerians and headed for a club to "have a good time", said Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo.

About a week later, $365,956 was deposited into her POSB account.

The money came from an American whom she did not know.

She withdrew the money and handed it to the group of Nigerians in Malaysia.

In doing so, she failed to declare to an officer at Woodlands Checkpoint, as required by law, that she was carrying a sum of money that exceeded $30,000.

Even after her arrest in November 2012, she recruited others to receive "dirty money from third parties" on behalf of the group.

For her role, Jorah was given a total of $11,000 in commissions by the Nigerians.

This article was first published on September 23, 2014.
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