Economic Crime: Emerging Threats and Responses--Singapore's Experience (From Annual Report for 2004 and Resource Material Series No. 66, P 45-70, 2005, Simon Cornell, ed. -- See NCJ-213348)

• NCJ Number: 213349
• Author(s): Paramjit Singh
• Date Published: September 2005
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Japan

Annotation

This report examines four categories of economic crimes in Singapore and government strategies for countering them: securities fraud, corporate fraud, money laundering, and credit card fraud.

Abstract

The discussion of securities fraud first focuses on the use of the Internet as a trading platform for perpetrating securities fraud. This is followed by an overview of insider trading and the use of "bucket shops." The latter refers to fake commodities trading companies that lure victims into fake security transactions. The fraudulent companies "bucket" (falsely claim they made transactions) or "churn" (claim repeated transactions) in order to collect fraudulent commissions from clients. The discussion of corporate fraud first addresses the importance to the state of having a sound corporate governance regime. This is followed by a review of the 1995 collapse of Britain's oldest merchant bank (Barings), which is an illustration of the link between lax corporate governance and corporate failure. Implications are drawn for what constitutes sound internal controls that can ensure integrity in corporate policies and practice. The section on money laundering describes Singapore's experience in dealing with underground financial systems and nonfinancial institutions that do money laundering. The discussion of credit card fraud identifies vulnerabilities to such fraud and profiles organized card counterfeiting syndicates in the Asia Pacific region. Also discussed are Singapore's experience with credit card fraud and industry safeguards. Following an outline of five impediments to prevention, enforcement, and deterrence in addressing the aforementioned economic crimes, the report describes five successful strategies Singapore has used to counter these crimes. They are in the areas of legislative measures, a regulatory regime, a proactive institutional enforcement capability, the sharing of responsibilities between government and private commercial enterprises, and international cooperation.