SINGAPORE - A High Court judge has refused bail for Vang Shuiming, one of the 10 foreigners charged in Singapore’s largest money laundering probe, even with the Turkish national’s offer to be placed under 24-hour surveillance as a condition of his release.

Justice Vincent Hoong said the measures proposed did not satisfactorily address the significant flight risk that he posed, given his significant assets overseas, his multiple passports and the investigative finding that his cryptocurrency assets had been moved after his arrest.

Vang, who is also known as Wang Shuiming, was in the High Court on Thursday, the second time the 42-year-old had applied for bail through a procedure known as criminal revision.

He is the only one out of the 10 accused people to have done so.

In the current application, his lawyer, Mr Wendell Wong, argued that a district judge’s order on Sept 29 denying his client bail was wrong.

Justice Hoong said he did not find that there was anything palpably wrong in the order that resulted in serious injustice because Vang was denied bail.

“The arguments made by the applicant before the district judge and in this application are unmeritorious and do not support his position for bail to be granted,” he added.

The judge reminded Vang that while the option remained open to him to seek another bail review in the lower court or file further applications to the High Court for bail to be granted, he must ensure that there were proper grounds to support his applications.

“Once an application for bail has been rejected, the court would be extremely reluctant to grant bail where subsequent applications are filed to the same court, unless there has been a material change in circumstances or new facts have since come to light,” he said, citing a precedent.

Vang, who also has passports from China and Vanuatu, was among the nine men and one woman arrested by the Commercial Affairs Department on Aug 15 and charged the next day. All were originally from China.

The value of the assets seized or frozen by the authorities currently stands at $2.8 billion.

On Thursday, Mr Wong argued that Vang should be granted bail with sufficient conditions to secure his attendance for his trial.

Mr Wong said Vang could be made to wear an electronic tag, and Vang was willing to be placed under 24-hour closed-circuit television camera surveillance.

His family members were also willing to surrender all their passports and have their names put on the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s watch list, said the lawyer.

Mr Wong argued that there was no evidence that his client was a flight risk apart from the fact that he had multiple passports, stressing that all the passports were legitimately obtained and issued by the respective governments.

He argued that the presumption of innocence had been overshadowed, even though Vang had never been convicted of any crimes.

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor David Koh maintained that Vang posed a high flight risk.

The prosecutor argued that Vang had no true roots in Singapore as he was neither a citizen nor a permanent resident.

He noted that substantial assets of more than $240 million in the name of Vang and his wife had been seized or subject to prohibition orders in Singapore.

Vang also had more than $35.5 million in assets overseas, the DPP added.

“This provides him with the means and the motivation to move overseas and access the assets which are not seized,” he said.

The prosecutor noted that Vang had been “vague” about the location of his Cambodian passport, which has not been found.

He said Vang’s claim that he and his family members were willing to surrender their passports was meaningless.

“It is not possible for the police to determine how many passports they have, whether all of their passports had been surrendered and... to prevent them from obtaining new passports,” he said.

As for the watch list, the prosecutor pointed out that an accused person who wanted to flee jurisdiction would not necessarily do so through the immigration checkpoints.

In his judgment, Justice Hoong noted that Vang had obtained passports from Turkey, Vanuatu and Cambodia by making donations and financial contributions to those countries.

He said this amplified the risk of Vang being able to abscond, whether by using the Cambodian passport or by procuring a new passport through similar methods.

Vang faces five charges – one for using a forged document and four for money laundering.

He is alleged to have submitted a forged bank statement to Citibank Singapore in March 2021 as supporting documentation.

The money laundering charges relate to about $2.4 million held in four bank accounts. The sums are said to be benefits from an unlicensed moneylending business in China.

Vang’s case is scheduled for a pre-trial conference in the State Courts on Oct 27.

His brother, Wang Shuiting, is one of eight fugitives who are wanted by the Singapore police in connection with the case. The two brothers are on China’s wanted list for illegal gambling activities.

Separately, Rainbow Centre, the operator of three special education schools, has acknowledged that it received donations from Vang and two others of the 10 charged.

According to its annual report, Vang donated $30,000. It also received $25,350 from Su Haijin and $17,100 from Zhang Ruijin.

Su, a Cypriot national, faces one charge of unlawfully evading arrest, as well as a money laundering charge involving about $4 million in a UOB bank account, allegedly the benefits of criminal conduct. 

At a pre-trial conference on Wednesday, a district judge directed the prosecution to be ready to proceed with the current two charges against Su if the investigations still cannot be completed within eight weeks.