Singapore has started a new plan to recover stolen assets, led by Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong. This plan is meant to improve the country’s efforts to stop illegal money activities like money laundering and financing terrorism, which happen across different countries.
Since January 2019, Singapore has taken about S$6 billion connected to criminal and money laundering activities. Out of this, S$416 million has been given back to the victims, and another S$1 billion has been taken by the government. The rest is still being looked into by the authorities.
The plan has four main parts: finding illegal money, taking away criminals’ assets, getting back as much as possible, and stopping criminals from using Singapore’s financial system for bad activities.
Working with other countries and local groups is really important for this plan. For example, things like getting text message alerts from the Singapore Police Force and local banks have been really good at stopping scams and saving people from losing a lot of money.
Lawrence Wong talked about the plan and said that Singapore wants to be careful with its money and make sure that bad things don’t happen, by working with the community and businesses.
