REACH

*Victim restitution fund financed by the confiscated proceeds from  money laundering cases*

02 Mar 2025

Part 1/2 - Pitfalls to consider

1.Victims lose life savings very pitiful.

2.But confiscated proceeds not enough to compensate all victims even though assets surrendered to the state as part of the S$3 billion (US$2.2 billion) money laundering case are progressively being liquidated and returned to government coffers. (Source:- CNA news 28 Feb 2025 12:42PM)

Because in 2024 alone, at least S$1.1 billion (US$822 million) was lost to scams (not taking into accounts other years)

3. CNA news article also say people may try to abuse the proceeds by collaborating with scammers to cheat the Government for compensation by declaring scam loss.

4. And also people may get complacent and fall for more scams.

Not a good move if scam victims are responsible.

Individuals let down their guards, more scams - as at the back of their mind, if they got scam, Government will refund us from consficated proceeds.(My close friend input)

5. In addition, not all the confiscated proceeds are from online scam including illegal moneylending and other form of crimes whereby other victims who may also similarly feel that they have a claim to those proceeds.

6.. This round of money laundering got money to compensate. What happen if all the confiscated proceeds used up, how to compensate for future scams? (My close friend input)

That is why I feel that it will be very tricky to compensate the scams victims without causing all the above problems.

Hence I will like to suggest looking into another approach in employing consficated proceeds from money laudering in Part 2 to mitigate the considerations highlighted above.

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REACH

*Victim restitution fund financed by the confiscated proceeds from  money laundering cases*

2 Mar 2025

Part 2/2 - Setting up Anti-Scam Fund from confiscated proceeds.

1. The idea is to treat all the confiscated proceeds cash plus liquidated assets of S$3 billion (US$2.2 billion) as Capital to be put into a newly erected Anti-Scam Fund to fight scam - without drawing down the Capital to directly compensate victims of scams.

2. Instead the Capital of S$3 billion should be invested to earn income, interest, dividends or other means through Fund Management - and then use the income earned to fund the following :-

a. Government spent the money (income from Capital, not drawing down the Capital) to up measures to fight scams. Never ending war. (my close fried input)

Eg. Financing the setting up of Anti-Scam Unit.

R&D to tighten online authentication (that are scam-proof) eg. anti-malware, multi-FA authentication, biometric authentication etc.

b. Categorise victims according to:-

i. Identify scam victims directly lost from this money lauderers and compensate them through the income earned (not capital). (Karma must be directly attributed to the cause-and-effect).

ii. Identify victims lost other forms of crimes 

Apportion of compensation should be based on some objective criteria - to ensure it is fair to all victims.

(The justification is, victims losing their life savings are very pitiful, but they must bear some responsibilities for their guilibility or greed or anxiety or other factors such as self-insecurity.

Hence full compensation may not be possible, but at least they get back something to live on and not totally lost hope).

3. By setting up a Trust Fund to earn income and finance the above activities, will ensure that :-

a. Confiscated proceeds will not be used up in one go as compensation.

b. Consficated proceeds can be converted to earn income by setting up a Trust Fund -- and use income to finance the above anti-scam fight - a never ending war.

If we use the entire confiscated proceed to compensate - then we will never be able to finance the fight for a never-ending war - and will need to draw on taxpayer money to do so..

c. Also assume a return of 4% yearly from invested fund of S$3 billion, it means $S120 million will be made available every year to fight the scam and give some compensation to victims - quite a sizeable sum.

Hence we can exploit the confiscated proceeds creatively - by setting up a Trust Fund to fight scam - and convert a threat (Money Laudering) into a continuous firepower (Finaces).

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