According to the Police media release, an island-wide has been conducted against unlicensed money lending activities.
A total of 146 persons, aged between 14 and 78 years old. They are suspected for their involvement in unlicensed money lending activities.
The two-week anti-unlicensed moneylending operation was conducted between 14 and 25 February 2022, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department and the seven Police land divisions conducted simultaneous raids island-wide.
Harassment at residences
Preliminary investigations revealed that seven suspects had allegedly conducted harassment at debtors’ residences. Another 23 suspects are believed to be runners who had assisted in unlicensed moneylending businesses by carrying out Automated Teller Machine (ATM) transfers.
Selling their ATM card to ah long
The remaining 116 suspects are believed to have opened bank accounts and provided their ATM cards, Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and/or Internet Banking tokens to unlicensed moneylenders to facilitate their unlicensed moneylending.
Investigations against all the suspects are ongoing.
Under the Moneylenders Act 2008, when a bank account, ATM card or Internet Banking token of any person is used to facilitate moneylending by an unlicensed moneylender, that person is presumed to have assisted in carrying on the business of unlicensed moneylending.
First-time offenders found guilty of carrying on or assisting in a business of unlicensed moneylending shall be punished with an imprisonment of up to four years, a fine between $30,000 and $300,000, and caning of up to six strokes.
First-time offenders found guilty of acting on behalf of an unlicensed moneylender, committing or attempting to commit any acts of harassment shall be punished with an imprisonment of up to five years, a fine of between $5,000 and $50,000, and caning between three and six strokes.