Couple jailed in US$3.6m money laundering case involving ex-Papua New Guinea PM.
SINGAPORE - A married couple laundered US$3.6 million which had been meant to set up community colleges in Papua New Guinea - then gave US$784,000 of it to the country's then Prime Minister.
Singaporean Lim Ai Wah, 61, was given five years' jail on Thursday (Sept 1), while her 68-year-old American husband Thomas Doehrman got five years and 10 months.
They were each found guilty on one count of falsification of accounts and five charges of transferring the benefits of criminal conduct.
Doehrman had been the trustee of a fund set up by the PNG government to set up community colleges in the country.
In June 2010 the trust hired ZTE Corporation for US$35 million to supply telecom equipment for the project and the couple conspired with a ZTE employee, Li Weiming, 34, for the company to pay a secret "commission" to them.
To conceal the true nature of the payment, Doehrman and Lim acquired a British Virgin Islands shell company, Questzone Offshore, and signed a fictitious US$3.6 million contract with ZTE.
No services were provided, but a Questzone invoice was created.
Doehrman and Lim gave Li, a Chinese national, US$850,000 via two transactions to his wife's Hong Kong bank account. They gave Sir Michael three cheques worth a total of USD$784,000 in late 2010, all of which were paid into his Singapore bank account.
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