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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has warned the city-state is vulnerable to criminals laundering the proceeds of environmental crime and is urging local banks to conduct greater scrutiny of trade transactions.
Last week, MAS published the findings of a government-wide review into Singapore’s financial sector and its potential exposure to crimes such as wildlife trade, illegal logging and the illicit shipping of hazardous waste.
Singapore’s regulator revealed banks and payment service providers are the sectors most acutely exposed and said trade-based money laundering (TBML) is a key risk for the industry.
“Banks and remittance agent sectors have been assessed to be the sectors most exposed to environmental crime [money laundering] risks in Singapore. These sectors are more internationally oriented and are most vulnerable to being misused to launder proceeds,” MAS says.
Singapore is broadly at risk given its role as a financial centre and international trade hub, positioned at the intersection of global supply chains.
The report highlights money laundering risks are a particular concern for banks, especially those involved in facilitating trade.
“Banks may be exposed to [such] risks through financing trade in illegal [environmental] goods and dealing with criminals looking to park their illegally obtained proceeds,” MAS says.
The report comes amid growing concern over Singapore’s role in transiting illegal wildlife goods such as ivory or pangolin scales to buyers in East Asian nations, namely China, Vietnam and Laos.
In 2019, Singapore’s customs confiscated 25 tonnes of Pangolin scales contained within two shipments from Nigeria to Vietnam. The scales had been masked as cassia seeds and frozen beef.
Meanwhile, in 2022, the city-state recorded its largest seizure of rhinoceros horns to date.
The illegal shipment of timber from Indonesia is another area of potential concern. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), East Asia is in the “midst of an environmental disaster, with some of the highest deforestation rates in the world”.
In its review, MAS says Singapore’s position in global trade finance ultimately leaves it vulnerable to environmental crime, in particular, through TBML.
“[Environmental] goods transactions are closely linked to trade financing transactions and the monies moved or received by a middleman such as a logistics or import/export company could appear legitimate until the bank dives deeper to examine the source of the funds, nature of transaction, and verify the goods against that reported in the bills of lading,” MAS says.
“Given their global network, banks in Singapore inevitably process high volumes of international fund flows. They could facilitate TBML transactions that are often hard to differentiate from legitimate transactions.”
“The sector is assessed to be highly vulnerable to [environmental crime money laundering],” it adds.
In its report, MAS highlights various red flags that may indicate TBML, such as the falsification of documents to mask the locale of origin or using transit countries to commingle legal and illegal products.
Criminals may also divert containers or shipments through third countries and switch the bills of lading or vessels, concealing the movement of environmental goods and money, MAS says.
Overall, MAS says Singapore’s financial sector has a “medium to low” risk of being exposed to environmental money laundering, and to date, the city-state has not successfully convicted any person or entity for such crimes.
However, the review is intended to help “high risk” institutions such as banks to “formulate their procedures and controls to better detect and stay alert” to environmental crime threats, MAS says.
Scrutiny of illicit wildlife trade has been growing in recent years, yet according to estimates from the Financial Action Task Force, a standard-setting organisation focused on illicit financial flows, environmental crimes are estimated to generate around US$110bnto US$281bn annually.
Later this year, Singapore is preparing to expand the scope of its existing Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, which targets environmental crime laundering.
The expansion would allow Singapore’s authorities to investigate offences that first take place overseas but have “no domestic equivalent”, such as illegal logging or waste trafficking.
Tags: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Financial Action Task Force, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), trade-based money laundering (TBML), Wildlife trafficking
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This Privacy Policy outlines the information we may collect about you in relation to your use of our websites, events, related publications and services (“personal data”) and how we may use that personal data. It also outlines the methods by which we and our service providers may (subject to necessary consents) monitor your online behaviour to deliver customised advertisements, marketing materials and other tailored services. This Privacy Policy also tells you how you can verify the accuracy of your personal data and how you can request that we delete or update it.
This Privacy Policy applies to all websites operated by Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd (as indicated on the relevant website).
This privacy statement does not cover the activities of third parties, and you should consult those third-party sites’ privacy policies for information on how your data is used by them.
Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.
Established in 2002 and with offices in London and Singapore, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is the world’s leading trade and trade finance media company, offering information, news, events and services for companies and individuals involved in global trade.
Our principal business activities are:
Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is a company registered in the United Kingdom with company number 4407327 | VAT Registration: 799 1585 59
This Data Protection Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
Why do we collect information from you?
Our primary goal in collecting personal data from you is to give you an enjoyable customised experience whilst allowing us to provide services and features that will meet your needs.
We collect certain personal data from you, which you give to us when using our Site and/or registering or subscribing for our products and services. However, we also give you the option to access our Sites’ home pages without subscribing or registering or disclosing your personal data.
We also collect certain personal data from other group companies to whom you have given information through their websites (including, by way of example, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and subsidiaries, in accordance with the purposes listed below). Should we discover that any such personal data has been delivered to any of the Sites, we will remove that information as soon as possible.
This Data Protection Policy ensures Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd:
We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
The Data Protection Act 1998 described how organisations – including Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd – must collect, handle and store personal information. These rules apply regardless of whether data is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials. To comply with the law, personal information collected must be stored safely, not disclosed unlawfully and used fairly.
The Data Protection Act is underpinned by eight important principles. These say that personal data must:
We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services, when you register for an event, register to receive eNewsletters, subscribe or register for a trial to our GTR magazine/website.
On some Sites, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd collects personal data such as your name, job title, department, company, e-mail, phone, work and/or home address, in order to register you for access to certain content, subscriptions and events. In addition, we may also store information including IP address and page analytics, including information regarding what pages are accessed, by whom and when.
This information is used to administer and deliver to you the products and/or services you have requested, to operate our Sites efficiently and improve our service to you, and to retain records of our business transactions and communications. By using the Sites and submitting personal information through the registration process you are agreeing that we may collect, hold, process and use your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with the Site services and developing our business, which shall include (without limitation) the purposes described in the below paragraphs.
Where, as part of our Site services, we enable you to post information or materials on our Site, we may access and monitor any information which you upload or input, including in any password-protected sections. Subject to any necessary consents, we also monitor and/or record the different Sites you visit and actions taken on those Sites, e.g. content viewed or searched for. If you are a registered user (e.g. a subscriber or taking a trial), when you log on, this places a cookie on your machine. This enables your access to content and services that
are not publicly available. Once you are logged on, the actions you take – for example, viewing an article – will be recorded (subject to any necessary consents). We may use technology or a service provider to do this for us. This information may be used for one or more of the following purposes:
Please see paragraph 5 below for more information on cookies and similar technologies and a link to a page where you can turn them on or off.
Some of your personal data collected under paragraphs 1 and 2 above may be used by us to contact you by e-mail, telephone and/or post for sending information or promotional material on our products and/or services and/or those of our other group companies. We give you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving marketing communications. Further detail can be found on the applicable Site and in the footer of each marketing communication sent by us, our group companies or service providers. See also “Consents and opt-outs” section below. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you.
All our Sites use cookies and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide.
When you enter some sites, your computer will be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to servers. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used.
Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows, recording those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long.
Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. Selecting not to receive means that certain personalised services Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd offers cannot then be provided to that user.
All of the major browser providers offer advice on setting up and using the privacy and security functions for their products. If you require technical advice or support for a specific browser/version please contact the provider or visit their website for further details: www.microsoft.com / www.mozilla.com / www.apple.com / www.opera.com / www.aol.com / www.netscape.com / www.flock.com / www.google.com.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that, or to notify you each time a cookie is set. You can also learn more about cookies in general by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org which includes additional useful information on cookies and how to block cookies using different types of browser. Please note however, that by blocking, deleting or turning off cookies used on the Site you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site.
E-mail tracking is a method for monitoring the e-mail delivery to those subscribers who have opted-in to receive marketing e-mails from GTR, including GTR Africa, GTR Asia, GTR Americas, GTR Europe, GTR Mena, GTR eNews, Third party e-mails and GTR Ventures.
So that we can better understand our users’ needs, we track responses, subscription behaviour and engagement to our e-mails – for example, to see which links are the most popular in newsletters. They enable us to understand the consumers journey through metrics including open rate, click-through rate, bounces and unsubscribes. Any other purposes for which Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd wishes to use your personal data will be notified to you and your personal data will not be used for any such purpose without obtaining your prior consent.
To do this, we use pixel GIFs, also known as “pixel tags” – these are small image files that are placed within the body of our e-mail messages. When that image is downloaded from our web servers, the e-mail is recorded as being opened. By using some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date that an e-mail was received or opened, as well the IP address of the recipient.
You can give your consent to opt-out of all or any particular uses of your data as indicated above by:
To turn cookies and similar technologies on and off, see the information in paragraph 5 above. Any questions regarding consents and opt-outs should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.
Information collected at one Site may be shared between Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and other group companies for the purposes listed above.
We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.
Some of our Sites may have a message board, blogs or other facilities for user generated content available and users can participate in these facilities. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should always be careful when deciding to disclose your personal information.
Services on the Internet are accessible globally so collection and transmission of personal data is not always limited to one country. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd may transfer your personal data, for the above-listed purposes to other third parties, which may be located outside the European Economic Area and/or with a different level of personal data protection. However, when conducting transfers, we take all necessary steps to ensure that your data is treated reasonably, securely and in accordance with this Privacy Statement.
We are committed to keeping the data you provide us secure and will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal data from loss, misuse or alteration.
However, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features described above to try to prevent unauthorised access.
We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from:
All our employees, contractors and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal data on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with the processing of your personal data, are obliged to keep the information confidential and not use it for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for us.
Everyone who works for or with Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd has some responsibility for ensuring data is collected, stored and handled appropriately. Each team handling personal data must ensure that it is handled and processed in line with this policy and data protection principles. However, the following people have key areas of responsibility. The board of directors is ultimately responsible for ensuring that Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd meets its legal obligations.
Name of Data Controller
The Data Controller is Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is subject to the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and is registered in the UK with the Information Commissioner`s Office.
If you wish to know whether we are keeping personal data about you, or if you have an enquiry about our privacy policy or your personal data held by us, in relation to any of the Sites, you can contact the Data Protection Officer via:
Upon request, we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal data which we keep about you. We may require proof of your identity and may charge a small fee (not exceeding the statutory maximum fee that can be charged) to cover administration and postage.
Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd allows you to challenge the data that we hold about you and, where appropriate in accordance with applicable laws, you may have your personal information:
In certain circumstances, the Data Protection Act allows personal data to be disclosed to law enforcement agencies without the consent of the data subject. Under these circumstances, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, will disclose requested data. However, the Data Controller will ensure the request is legitimate, seeking assistance from the board and from the company’s legal advisors where necessary.
We will occasionally update this Privacy Statement to reflect new legislation or industry practice, group company changes and customer feedback. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically to be informed of how we are protecting your personal data.
Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd aims to ensure that individuals are aware that their data is being processed, and that they understand.
To this end, the company has a privacy statement, setting out how data relating to individuals is used by the company. This is available on request and available on the company’s website.
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Privacy Statement was last updated in April 2018.