How Singapore answered 1MDB — enforcement record, 2015–2026 | DigiJanus

Market structure research · AML enforcement · Mar 2015 – Sep 2026

How Singapore answered 1MDB

Two Swiss-owned merchant banks lost the right to operate. Six more were fined and carried on trading. Five people were convicted, three were warned instead of charged, and eleven were barred from the industry. About S$124 million has gone back to Malaysia. This is the dated record.

Compiled from contemporaneous reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, CNA, The Straits Times, Malay Mail, Malaysiakini, New Straits Times, The Edge, SCMP, Al Jazeera and Bernama, cross-checked against Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore Police Force and Attorney-General's Chambers statements. Every substantive claim carries a link in the source register.

2Merchant banks whose Singapore status MAS withdrew, in 2016

S$29.1mComposition penalties across eight banks by 30 May 2017

5 + 3Convictions, plus three warnings in lieu of prosecution

S$124mRepatriated to Malaysia by 16 May 2025

The short answer

Two status withdrawals. Six fines. One conditional warning.

The most severe action — withdrawal of the right to operate — fell on exactly two Singapore units of Swiss private banks. Six other banks paid composition penalties and continued trading. Goldman Sachs Singapore was never fined by MAS but paid US$183 million under a police conditional warning, which the authorities were explicit is not a fine. The distinction matters: a penalty is a cost of doing business, a licence withdrawal ends the business.

BSI Bank Limited, Singapore

Singapore unit of BSI SA, Lugano

Action: MAS served notice of intention to withdraw the bank's merchant bank status and directed an orderly wind-down. The first such withdrawal since Jardine Fleming in 1984.
Announced: 24 May 2016
Reason: Serious breaches of anti-money-laundering requirements, poor management oversight of the bank's operations, and gross misconduct by some of the bank's staff.
Penalty: S$13.3 million composition penalty for 41 breaches of MAS Notice 1014. Six people referred to the Public Prosecutor: Hans Peter Brunner, Raj Sriram, Kevin Swampillai, Yak Yew Chee, Yeo Jiawei, Yvonne Seah.
Outcome: Assets and liabilities transferred to EFG Bank AG's Singapore branch; integration reported complete by end-November 2016.
Sources: Malay Mail/Reuters · Bloomberg · MAS

Falcon Private Bank, Singapore Branch

Branch of Falcon Private Bank Ltd, Zurich — IPIC-owned

Action: MAS withdrew the branch's merchant bank status and directed it to cease operations.
Announced: 11 October 2016
Reason: Serious failures in AML controls and improper conduct by senior management at the Head Office in Switzerland as well as the Singapore Branch, and a persistent and severe lack of understanding of MAS requirements.
Penalty: S$4.3 million for 14 breaches of MAS Notice 1014. MAS had already fined Falcon S$300,000 after a 2013 inspection — a pre-1MDB penalty, outside the S$29.1m total.
Outcome: Orderly closure overseen with Swiss regulator FINMA. Completion date not established in the reporting reviewed. Branch manager Jens Sturzenegger arrested by CAD on 5 October 2016.
Sources: Malay Mail/Reuters · Fortune/Reuters · MAS

The arc

Three phases, ten years

Singapore's response moved in three stages. Each one below carries the steps the authorities took, the institutions and people they acted against, and a dated timeline of every action.

1Investigate
& Freeze

Phase 1 · March 2015 – July 2016

Quiet beginnings, then a S$240 million disclosure

MAS said publicly on 23 March 2015 that Singapore was assisting Malaysia, and a later joint statement dated both the CAD investigation and MAS's supervisory examinations to that month. The first visible coercive act came in July 2015, when police froze two bank accounts. By February 2016 MAS and the Commercial Affairs Department acknowledged a "large number" of accounts had been seized. In March and April 2016 the CAD arrested and charged BSI's Yeo Jiawei; in April and May it obtained arrest warrants for Jho Low and Eric Tan Kim Loong. The phase ended with the closure of BSI Bank on 24 May and, on 21 July, a joint statement putting a number on the seizures.

What the authorities did

Steps in this phase

Who was acted against

Select for detail and sources

Timeline

Select an event to expand

2Enforce
& Punish

Phase 2 · October 2016 – December 2017

A second bank shut, six fined, five people convicted

From October 2016 MAS worked through the banks that had handled 1MDB money, announcing results in batches: Falcon, DBS and UBS on 11 October 2016; Standard Chartered and Coutts on 2 December 2016; Credit Suisse and UOB on 30 May 2017, when it declared the review complete. In parallel, prosecutors secured Singapore's first 1MDB convictions — all BSI or Falcon staff, plus one broker — and MAS issued its first eight prohibition orders, including against Goldman Sachs's Tim Leissner. The penalties on individual banks were modest by international standards. The licence withdrawals were not.

What the authorities did

Steps in this phase

Eight banks, two outcomes

Composition penalties in Singapore dollars

What MAS charged, and who lost the licence

S$29.1 million across eight banks. Outlined bars mark the two that also lost their merchant bank status; the rest continued trading. Goldman Sachs Singapore's US$122 million payment of 2020 is excluded — it was made under a police conditional warning, not an MAS composition penalty.

Sources: MAS statements of 24 May 2016, 11 Oct 2016, 2 Dec 2016 and 30 May 2017, as reported by Malay Mail/Reuters, Fortune/Reuters, The Edge Malaysia and MAS on Credit Suisse and UOB. Singapore's 2024 National Risk Assessment gives a broader S$32.8 million across 11 institutions without naming the additional three. The S$5.2 million penalty on Standard Chartered in March 2018 was a separate, non-1MDB matter.

Who was acted against

Select for detail and sources

Banks

Bank staff prosecuted or banned

Acted against independently of a Singapore bank

Timeline

Select an event to expand

3Recover &
Follow Through

Phase 3 · September 2018 onward

Sending the money back, warning the rest, lengthening the bans

Once Malaysia's government changed in May 2018, the two countries agreed to cooperate on returning seized funds. The Singapore State Courts granted the first disposal orders that September; a second tranche followed in March 2019 and further ones in 2021, 2024 and 2025, taking the total repatriated to about S$124 million by 16 May 2025. This phase also produced a fourth kind of outcome: warnings in lieu of prosecution. Goldman Sachs Singapore accepted a 36-month conditional warning in October 2020; former BSI executives Kevin Swampillai and Raj Sriram, and intermediary Samuel Wu, were warned rather than charged. MAS revisited earlier decisions too, taking the count of 1MDB-related prohibition orders to eleven. In June 2026 police confirmed the warrants for Jho Low and Eric Tan remain in force.

What the authorities did

Steps in this phase

Where the seized money stands

SPF statements, 16 Jul 2024 and 16 May 2025

Returned, and still held

By July 2024 court orders had released about S$103 million to Malaysia, while about S$164 million remained seized or prohibited from disposal, including about S$101 million linked to Jho Low and his family. By 16 May 2025 cumulative repatriation had reached about S$124 million. Stock and flow figures from different dates cannot be added to one another.

Sources: Bernama · Malay Mail · SPF, 16 Jul 2024 · SPF, 16 May 2025.

Who was acted against

Select for detail and sources

Institutions

Individuals

Timeline

Select an event to expand

What mattered most

The fines were modest.
The licence withdrawals were not.

Four takeaways — scroll sideways on a narrow screen

01

Revoke, not fine

S$29.1 million in total was modest by the standards of US or UK enforcement. What gave the response its weight was the decision to revoke — the first merchant bank withdrawal since 1984, and a second five months later.

02

First to convict

Singapore was the first country to convict anyone over 1MDB. Yak Yew Chee's eighteen weeks in November 2016 preceded every foreign conviction, and Yeo Jiawei's 54-month concurrent term is still the heaviest handed down here.

03

Then the method changed

Once convictions were secured, the authorities traded prosecution for cooperation, disgorgement and payment — Goldman Sachs Singapore, Swampillai, Wu, Sriram. Faster and cheaper. It also left BSI's chief executive with no reported Singapore action at all.

04

Recovery is durable but slow

About S$124 million returned by May 2025, roughly S$164 million still frozen in mid-2024, and Jho Low still beyond a Singapore courtroom a decade on.

Caveats and discrepancies

What to hold in mind when using this

Legal precision. BSI and Falcon lost merchant bank status, a licence-level action. DBS, UBS, Standard Chartered, Coutts, Credit Suisse and UOB paid composition penalties and continued to operate. Coutts was separately winding down its Singapore business after its 2015 sale. Goldman Sachs Singapore's US$122 million was paid under a CAD conditional warning; MAS and the AGC publicly corrected media that called it a fine. Warnings in lieu of prosecution are not convictions. Prohibition orders are administrative bans, not criminal findings.
Sturzenegger's arrest date. MAS's 11 October 2016 statement gives 5 October. Reuters-based reports the same day said 6 October. This account follows MAS.
Yeo Jiawei's sentence. The 54-month term of July 2017 ran concurrently with the remainder of the 30-month term of December 2016. The two must not be added to produce "84 months"; one of the reports reviewed made that error.
Two aggregate figures. MAS's contemporaneous releases itemise S$29.1 million across eight banks. Singapore's 2024 Money Laundering National Risk Assessment gives S$32.8 million across 11 financial institutions without identifying the other three. Both appear here; they cannot be reconciled from public documents.
Event versus publication dates. Where they differ, both are shown — Yak Yew Chee's RM1,695,946.20 was credited on 21 January 2024 but disclosed on 17 March 2025; the Swampillai and Wu warnings were administered between October and December 2021 but announced on 28 January 2022.
Currency. Figures appear in the currency originally reported. The July 2019 return was S$50.3 million, described variously as US$37 million, "almost US$40 million" and RM152–164 million.
Unverified items. Falcon's Singapore closure completion date; the exact day of the March 2019 court order; the itemised composition of the November 2021 US$16.3 million return; and a figure of about US$78 million still tied to Low reported in one reviewed report, which could not be confirmed and is omitted.
Jurisdictional separation. FINMA's CHF 95 million disgorgement against BSI SA and CHF 2.5 million against Falcon, Swiss criminal proceedings, US Department of Justice forfeitures and Malaysian prosecutions were separate actions, noted only where they directly explain something Singapore did.
Private civil litigation. The 2025 Standard Chartered suit (US$2.7 billion), the May 2026 winding-up orders and the September 2026 DBS claim (S$1.298 billion) were brought by court-appointed liquidators, not the state. They appear as context and are excluded from enforcement totals.

Source register

Every claim, and the reporting behind it

Each substantive claim in this report is listed with the reporting that supports it, so any of it can be checked independently. Media reports come first; MAS, SPF and AGC statements corroborate. Links marked † were carried over from the two comparative research reports reviewed for this revision and were consistent with independently verified sources, but the pages themselves were not opened during compilation.

Methodology and sourcing

How this record was built

This is a dated record of enforcement actions taken by Singaporean authorities in connection with 1MDB, assembled from contemporaneous media reporting and cross-checked against primary statements from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Singapore Police Force and the Attorney-General's Chambers.

Every substantive claim carries a link in the source register. Media reporting comes first for each claim; official statements corroborate rather than substitute. Consequential actions are supported by two or more independent reports wherever available. Where outlets disagree, both accounts are shown and the discrepancy explained. Items that could not be confirmed are marked unverified rather than inferred.

Open the source register

Action dates, not publication datesEach entry records the date of the underlying action. Where the reporting date differs, both are shown.
Legal instruments kept distinctStatus withdrawal, composition penalty, conditional warning, stern warning and prohibition order are five different things and are never conflated.
One jurisdiction onlyTotals cover Singaporean action. Swiss, US and Malaysian proceedings appear only where they directly explain a Singapore decision.