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A 36-year-old Indian man has been jailed in Singapore for 10 months for operating an unlicensed remittance business here in which he transferred a staggering 502.5 million dollars.
Jalaludeen Gulam Hussain operated out of Singapore's Little India precinct from January 2010 to July last year without license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the de-facto central bank.
He gained 5,22,750 dollars, one of the largest profits made by such an offender.
A district court yesterday heard that the 502.5 million dollars he remitted during the business period was also the highest amount for the offence.
In 2012, Jalaludeen had fallen victim to a 1.3-million dollars gang robbery in the precinct along with two other compatriots by a gang of five that also included two Indians, The Straits Times reported today.
He used a system known as Hawala, which is based on trust between the customer and the agent.
He collected money from Indian nationals who came from the same area or village and remitted them in India. He also remitted money from India to Singapore.
Jalaludeen would use the collected Singapore dollars to buy gold which was sent to India through couriers. The gold would be sold for profit in India and the agent there would disburse the proceeds in rupees.
Jalaludeen's average monthly profit was 8,250 dollars.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo cited several aggravating factors, including the long period of offending and difficulty in detection.
The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of 1,00,000 dollars and two years' jail.
