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SYDNEY — Australian police have seized more than A$320,000 (S$328,209) from the Sydney bank account of a top Malaysian police officer on suspicion of money laundering, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported on Friday (Mar 2).
Criminal Investigations Department (CID) chief Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd however is not fighting to have the money back. This was even though he has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Malaysian police following an internal inquiry after it was alerted by their Australian counterparts.
Mr Wan Ahmad, who was promoted to CID chief in April last year, had purportedly said his bank account there - opened in 2011 - was used to pay for his daughter’s master’s degree.
At that time, he was the Johor police chief. The SMH report said the account lay dormant for years until September 2016. A week after he concluded a trip to Australia, the account received “a flurry of suspicious cash deposits.”
"Unknown depositors visited branches and ATMs around the country, from Biloela in country Queensland to Devonport in northern Tasmania to Lakemba in Sydney’s west and Melbourne’s CBD," SMH reported.
“The account balance grew by nearly A$290,000 in a month, mostly in structured deposits below A$10,000, the threshold above which law enforcement agencies receive mandatory notifications.”
SMH added that the freezing and forfeiture applications by Australian authorities to the New South Wales Supreme Court were based solely on the structured deposits and did not explore whether Wan Ahmad was involved in the indictable offences.
Mr Wan Ahmad has denied any wrongdoing and said he is not fighting to have the money returned because of high legal costs.
“I’ve given my explanation,” he told Fairfax Media. “My department wrote a letter to the AFP (Australian Federal Police).”
Records showed that he had visited Australia on a tourist visa nine times since 2011, staying for less than a week and sometimes carrying lots of cash.
In December 2012, a year after the account was opened, a deposit of A$30,000 was received while A$8,000 was withdrawn, but after that the account lay dormant until 2016.
Then, less than a week after his final trip in September. a series of deposits from five different states poured in.
"Analysing the constellation of transactions - 54 of which fell below the reporting threshold - the Commonwealth Bank and the financial crime tracker AUSTRAC became alarmed," SMH reported.
“There does not appear to be any apparent lawful reason for the form and manner of the deposits,” an AFP officer from the Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce wrote in an affidavit.
SMH said that when the bank first told Mr Wan Ahmad about the closure of the account, a reply came from a hotmail email address asking for the balance to be sent as a cheque.
SMH also quoted Mr Allaudeen Abdul Majid of the Malaysian police’s integrity unit as saying the force had fully investigated the matter and found that the funds were lawfully obtained from the sale of a house and that Mr Wan Ahmad had wanted to send money to his daughter.
Mr Allaudeen had also said that Mr Wan Ahmad had asked a close friend, an Indian national named Seenisirajudeen Mohamad Basith, to handle the transfer of funds for him and the money was transferred without compliance to Australian laws.
“The whole episode was an oversight. No malice was intended to break any laws including Australia’s,” Mr Allaudeen was quoted as telling Australian investigators.
The Malaysian police’s investigation report on the matter was sent last March and Australian authorities won the forfeiture order on Mr Wan Ahmad’s account a week later.
Concerns have cropped up in Australia following the actions of criminal organisations in using international transactions that are outside the conventional banking system.
SMH says syndicates can launder funds by "hijacking legitimate transfers."
The report also said the Australian police is grappling with legal uncertainty in about 10 similar cases, with tens of millions of dollars at stake as appeals courts decide on access to criminal proceeds.
A Malaysian opposition lawmaker has called on the Malaysian anti-graft agency and the police to reopen Mr Wan Ahmad's case.
“The funds involved here is about a million ringgit. That amount far exceeds payment for his daughter's tertiary education," said Klang Member of Parliament Charles Santiago.
“What is strange, surprising even, is that Australian police noticed a possible crime but the Malaysian police cleared him. Are they using different standards of investigations?" he added.
“It is strange, really strange that he does not want the money back. Why? What comes to mind is that he wants to close the lid on the case. What is he hiding?” AGENCIES
https://www.todayonline.com/world/A...ia-CID-chief-on-suspicion-of-money-laundering
