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Reports by
Wong Wei Kong (Business Times 9 Feb 2004)
It's a crucial job: safeguarding the integrity of Singapore's financial markets and commercial sectors. And for the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), its efforts to prevent white-collar crime from taking place is just as important as nabbing and putting crooks behind bars.
'While we spare no efforts in investigating and solving commercial crime cases, it is imperative that we also reach out regularly to the public, especially the business community, to educate and generate awareness on preventive measures against commercial crime,' said CAD director Tan Siong Thye.
For this reason, the usually publicity-shy CAD is opening the files of some of its cases in a weekly series in The Business Times to raise public awareness of commercial crime as well as to send a strong deterrent message.
'We hope that companies, businesses, merchants as well as members of the public will get a better understanding of the various types of commercial crime cases in Singapore and exercise greater caution to prevent such crimes,' Mr Tan said.
'We also hope to send out a strong deterrent message to those inclined towards crime that it does not pay. Don't even think about it as we will track you down with swift enforcement action.'
For CAD, the increasingly sophisticated nature of white-collar crime means a constant drive to upgrade its capabilities.
'The nature of commercial crime has become much more complex over the past 20 years due to advancement in technology,' said Mr Tan.
'One of our major challenges is to be able to outsmart criminals who leverage on technology to commit crimes,' he said. 'We thus have to enhance our operational capability by being at the forefront of technology in order to be one step ahead of these law breakers.'
Indeed, CAD, in its current form, was the result of a recent merger to strengthen Singapore's ability to tackle commercial crime.
The original CAD was formed in August 1984 under the Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
At the time, Singapore did not have an enforcement agency equipped with the necessary specialist and professional knowledge to tackle complex commercial transgressions. The creation of CAD was to fill the void that previously left businesses vulnerable to white-collar crime.
The CAD then existed alongside the Commercial Crime Division (CCD) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police, which specialised in cases related to credit card fraud, 'get-rich-quick' scams and other forms of cheating.
In 2000, it was decided to merge the two units: CAD was dissolved from the charge of MOF and was re-constituted with the same name within the Singapore Police Force, while the CCD was integrated with the new CAD to create a single premier law enforcement agency to tackle all forms of commercial crimes.
The CAD today investigate offences under the Securities Industry Act, Companies Act, the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling (Prohibition) Act, as well as complex fraud under the Penal Code.
CAD is organised into seven divisions: securities and maritime fraud, corporate fraud, financial investigation, commercial crime, intelligence, strategic planning and training, and support and services.
The job calls for brains as well as good old-fashioned police work - graduate police officers with business administration, economics or law degrees work in teams alongside specially picked seasoned police officers in multi-faceted teams to crack cases.
Click here  (1.02MB) to view article.
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| Last updated on 17 May 2007 |
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