5 Gurkha Contingent officers ran illegal money transfer services

Five officers from the Gurkha Contingent (GC) operated unlawful cross-border money transfer services, with each man’s case involving between $103,473 and more than $2.86 million.

They were given jail sentences on Sept 5 after they pleaded guilty to charges under the Payment Services Act (PSA).

Sitaram Tamang’s case involved over $2.86 million in total, and he was handed the stiffest sentence of five months’ jail.

The 40-year-old man had pleaded guilty to a charge under the PSA involving nearly $1.6 million. Three other charges linked to the remaining amount were considered during sentencing.

Dik Bahadur Gurung, 32, was sentenced to 14 weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to two charges relating to more than $1 million in total.

Ganga Prasad Rai, 43, pleaded guilty to two charges involving more than $600,000 and was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail.

Ashok Kumar Thapa Magar, 39, and Mingmar Sherpa, 44, each pleaded guilty to one charge under the PSA.

Mingmar’s case involved nearly $472,000, and he was sentenced to seven weeks’ jail, while Ashok, whose case was linked to more than $103,000, was ordered to spend four weeks behind bars.

The Straits Times has reached out to the Singapore Police Force for a statement on the matter.

The prosecution said that a sixth man, identified as Mr Pratik Tamang, 41, is linked to some of the charges.

He joined the GC in 2004 and returned to Nepal in February 2022 after his retirement. He is still at large.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Brian Tan told the court that some time on or before June 2021, Mr Pratik began offering a money remittance service to the other GC officers within their camp.

According to court documents, he later recruited Ganga and Dik to work with him in offering such services. He also engaged Sitaram to help him collect the money.

Mr Pratik was already in Nepal when Sitaram worked with him between February and July 2022 to provide an unlawful payment service in Singapore.

DPP Tan said: “Under the arrangement, GC officers looking to remit money from Singapore dollars to Nepalese rupees (NPR) from Singapore to Nepal would contact Pratik via his mobile number.

“After informing Pratik of the amount in dollars that they were looking to remit back, Pratik would first transfer the equivalent amount in NPR to the remitters’ beneficiaries in Nepal.”

He would then ask the remitters to contact Sitaram in Singapore to transfer the equivalent value in dollars to Sitaram’s bank account linked to payment platform PayNow.

Nearly $1.6 million involving 111 deposits went through the bank account.

After that, Sitaram would arrange to hand over the remittance monies in dollars to Mr Pratik, either by PayNow transfers to the latter’s bank account or in cash to Mr Pratik’s friends.

Between February and July 2022, Ganga engaged in a conspiracy with Sitaram and Mr Pratik to offer a cross-border money transfer service. Ganga then collected more than $243,000, which he handed over to Sitaram.

Ganga later broke off his arrangement with Sitaram and Mr Pratik and began working on his own. He provided a similar service from August 2022 to March 2023, involving over $383,000.

Both Sitaram and Ganga did not make any profit from the remittances.

Meanwhile, Dik worked together with Sitaram and Mr Pratik to offer such a service between February and July 2022. He collected nearly $550,000, which he handed to Sitaram, the court heard.

He later stopped working with the pair and worked on his own from August 2022 to January 2023, and this offence involved nearly $500,000.

The DPP said that Dik earned an estimated profit of between $1,750 and $2,450.

Separately, the DPP said that Mingmar committed the offences with his Nepalese wife, Ms Pema Sherpa, 43, who is now based in Canada and is still at large.

According to court documents, she started offering a money remittance service to QC officers within their camp in September 2022.

DPP said that as Ms Pema needed a bank account to receive the remittance monies, her husband handed over the details of his bank account to her for this purpose. He also shared his PayNow details with her.

Between September 2022 and March 2023, Mingmar received more than $470,000 in his bank account as remittance through 183 transactions.

In an unrelated case, Ashok, who provided a similar service, received more than $103,000 in his bank account from February to July 2022 as remittance monies through 26 transactions.

The offences involving all five men came to light following a raid of the GC camp near Mount Vernon Road in March 2023.