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Police in Singapore Seize US$736 Million in Assets from Money Laundering Operation

Police in Singapore Seize US$736 million in Assets from Money Laundering Operation

The Singapore Police Force (SPF)has busted up a foreign anti-money laundering operations, seizing approximately US$736 million in assets. The assets, which included homes, luxury cars, and items, were either seized, frozen, or subjected to prohibition of disposal orders.

The members of the money laundering operations resided in good class bungalows (GCBs) and high-end condominiums, and they drove luxury cars. The police said they had received evidence about probable illegal acts, including fake documents used to prove the source of monies in Singapore bank accounts.

On Tuesday, police executed a large island wide blitz, raiding multiple GCBs and high-end condos across Singapore at the same time in order to apprehend several of the suspects. Tanglin, Bukit Timah, Orchard Road, Sentosa, and River Valley were among the areas raided.

On Wednesday night, ten people were arrested and charged, including a woman. They range in age from 31 to 44 years old and are suspected of forgery, money laundering, and resisting arrest.

Another 12 people are aiding with the investigations, and eight more are on the run and on the wanted list.

The police claimed in a release on Wednesday that the blitz featured more than 400 officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), Special Operations Command or riot police, and Police Intelligence Department.

The group of foreign nationals is accused of laundering criminal gains from their overseas organised crime activities, which are tied to scams and online gambling.

Police in Singapore Seize US$736 million in Assets from Money Laundering Operation

The police had tracked them down after conducting lengthy investigations, including an examination of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) filed by financial institutions in response to suspicious behaviour.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on Wednesday evening that it had been working closely with CAD to detect potentially tainted monies and assets in the financial system and prevent their dissipation.

It went on to say that red flag indicators such questionable fund transfers, dubious verification of source of wealth or funds, and discrepancies or evasiveness in information presented had been detected by the financial firms that filed the STRs.

The MAS stated that it has continuous supervisory engagements with the financial institutions where potentially tainted money have been identified, and that if violations are discovered, robust action would be taken.

According to the police, prohibition of disposal orders were filed against 94 homes and 50 vehicles worth more than $815 million, as well as numerous ornaments and bottles of spirits and wine.

The injunctions prevent the accused from selling their residences or automobiles.

In addition, the police seized more than 35 associated bank accounts with an estimated total value of more than $110 million in order to conduct investigations and block the transfer of suspected illegal proceeds.

Police in Singapore Seize US$736 million in Assets from Money Laundering Operation

More than $23 million in cash, over 250 luxury bags and watches, over 120 electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones, over 270 pieces of jewellery, two gold bars, and 11 documents with information on virtual assets were also seized.

Among those detained was a 40-year-old Cypriot national who was detained at the GCB where he was staying in Ewart Park, Bukit Timah. According to the police, policemen announced themselves at his bedroom door and told him to open it.

Instead, the man allegedly leaped off the second-floor balcony and was discovered injured hiding in a drain. He was rushed to the hospital.

He was also suspected to have other foreign passports from China and Cambodia.

The police confiscated almost $2.1 million in cash from the man and issued prohibition of disposal orders for 13 homes and five vehicles totaling more than $118 million. They also seized several decorations and bottles of spirits and wine, as well as four associated bank accounts containing more than $6.7 million.

CAD director David Chew stated that the police will collaborate with law enforcement agencies and financial intelligence units to detect, dissuade, and prohibit such criminal elements from operating in Singapore.

“We have zero tolerance for criminals or their families using Singapore as a safe haven, or for the abuse of our banking facilities,” he said.

“Our message to these criminals is simple: if we catch you, we will arrest you.” We will seize your ill-gotten gains if we locate them. We will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

Singapore, as a global financial hub, is subject to transnational money-laundering threats, according to Ms Ho Hern Shin, MAS’s deputy managing director (financial supervision).

“This case has highlighted that our financial institutions’ vigilance and prompt filing of STRs have assisted law enforcement authorities in identifying those suspected of carrying out illicit activities,” she said.

“However, it has also highlighted that Singapore remains vulnerable to transnational money-laundering/terrorism-financing risks as a global financial hub, and that MAS and financial institutions must continue to collaborate to strengthen our defences against these risks.”

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

The Continuum Condo: Luxurious Living in Singapore

The Continuum Condo: Luxurious Living in Singapore

 

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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