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[SINGAPORE] The Council for Estate Agents (CEA) has fined two property agents for their failure to conduct customer due diligence (CDD) measures on their clients who were connected to the S$3 billion money laundering case.

On Tuesday (Jul 1), CEA said: “Both agents had failed to properly conduct CDD measures, which are important and necessary in the fight against money laundering in the real estate agency industry.”

In January 2022, real estate agent Tiew Chin Nee was engaged by an unnamed client to source for an industrial property. Tiew facilitated the purchase of the industrial property for the client in the same month and subsequently assisted the client in renting out the property.

Prior to facilitating both the purchase and rental transactions, Tiew failed to screen the client against the list of designated individuals and entities under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act 2002, and other relevant UN Sanctions lists, CEA said.

Tiew also failed to assess the risk of the client engaging in money laundering or financing of terrorism and to document the checks required for the rental transaction. 

For these lapses, Tiew was issued a letter of censure with the maximum financial penalty of S$5,000 for breaching Section 44B(2)(a) of the Estate Agents Act 2010.

Another real estate agent Zhu Zhengxin was also issued a letter of censure with a financial penalty of S$2,000 for breaching the CEA Code of Ethics for failing to conduct CDD measures with due care.

In September 2020, he had represented a local company in the purchase of a commercial property.

The beneficial owner of the company was later convicted of money laundering and forgery charges. He had approached Zhu to purchase the multi-million-dollar commercial property for investment and had incorporated the company for purposes of the purchase.

While Zhu had completed the customer’s particulars form and due diligence checklist for the local company, he failed to obtain a written acknowledgement in the form of the signature and company stamp of an authorised signatory to confirm the accuracy of the identifying information.

Additionally, when submitting this documentation to his estate agent, Zhu inaccurately indicated on the CDD checklist that he had obtained the above written acknowledgement even though he had not.

Zhu is no longer a real estate agent.

BT has reached out to CEA for further details on the transactions involved.

In its statement, CEA said it is currently investigating other property agents who facilitated transactions of properties connected to the 2023 money laundering case and will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those found to have committed breaches or offences.

Those who fail to comply with the Estate Agents Act may face disciplinary action by a Disciplinary Committee. This includes financial penalties and/ or the revocation or suspension of the estate agent’s license and the salesperson’s registration.

Since April 8, the new Anti-Money Laundering and Other Matters (Estate Agents and Developers) Bill was passed in Parliament to strengthen the existing penalty frameworks for money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing.

Under the revised financial penalties, the maximum financial penalties will be prescribed on a “per contravention” basis for such breaches, rather than on a “per case” basis. 

This means that errant agents may face financial penalties of up to S$5,000 per breach and up to S$200,000 and S$100,000 per breach for agencies and salespersons respectively, for cases brought before CEA’s disciplinary committee.