Singapore: An Indian national was sentenced to nearly 11 months in jail by a Singapore court Wednesday for operating an unlicensed cross-border money transfer business involving over SGD 28 million (USD 21 million approx.) in total, according to a local media report.
Raju Krishnamoorthi, 45, pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiring with another person to operate a cross-border money transfer business and one charge of abetting someone to make a false statement for a work pass application, The Straits Times newspaper reported.
Krishnamoorthi was sentenced to nine months and seven weeks’ jail on two separate counts. He was also fined SGD 60,000, the paper said.
Court documents stated that Krishnamoorthi allegedly operated as a self-employed foreigner without a valid work pass between March 2024 and April 2025. Despite this, he purportedly engaged in unlicensed remittance services activities in Singapore without such a pass.
He began the illegal business with a man named Syed in 2022, which operated from a shophouse on Norris Road in the Little India area and agreed to work for SGD 1,500 per month, according to the daily.
Syed communicated with migrant workers who wanted to send money to India. These people were then asked to contact Krishnamoorthi and hand cash directly to him.
Some workers even gave him their ATM cards and PINs for safekeeping. Whenever they wanted to send money home, they instructed him to withdraw money from their bank accounts.
In a joint statement issued earlier in April, the police and the Ministry of Manpower said that a raid was conducted in Norris Road in the Little India precinct after receiving a tip-off.
They found that Krishnamoorthi had purportedly carried out unlicensed cross-border money transfer services.
During the raid, the officers seized more than SGD 314,000 in cash, 30 ATM cards, one hard disk, two mobile phones, and multiple remittance transaction record books.