A Singapore court has awarded Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng damages of S$230,000 (US$177,874) each for defamation by news organisation Bloomberg and its reporter, Mr Low De Wei.

In a judgment released on Tuesday (Jul 14), Justice Audrey Lim found that the December 2024 article about Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions had defamed the ministers.

She rejected Bloomberg’s argument that the article merely examined a broader trend of non-caveated GCB transactions and that the ministers were cited only as examples.

Instead, she said the article, when read as a whole, linked the ministers’ transactions with claims about secrecy, opacity and money laundering, creating a defamatory impression.

Justice Lim also rejected Bloomberg’s reliance on a public interest defence known as the Reynolds defence in UK law, saying it is not part of Singapore law.

Even if it were available, the judge found that Bloomberg would not have satisfied the standard of responsible journalism and that the ministers were not given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations ultimately published.

Justice Lim said internal correspondence from Bloomberg demonstrates that the dominant purpose behind the article was to publish a story about the ministers, in particular about their GCB transactions.

“The broader narrative of how wealthy individuals in Singapore use non-caveated transactions and trust structures to keep their dealings secret or ‘off-radar’ was the cover devised to carry that story,” said Justice Lim.

The Article

The Bloomberg article opened with a line that “Singapore’s ultra-rich are increasingly cloaking their purchases of mansions in the city-state in secrecy”.

After mentioning a S$3 billion money laundering scandal and how criminals linked to this case were convicted, jailed and deported, the article said buyers of high-end homes would rather keep their purchases under the radar.

The article then named Dr Tan and Mr Shanmugam and their respective GCB transactions.

Bloomberg and Mr Low had contested the claims, saying the article was about broader trends in Singapore’s GCB market rather than about the ministers personally, or any wrongdoing on their part.

In a 71-page judgment, Justice Lim said the test for determining the natural and ordinary meaning of offending words in a defamation action is well-settled.

The court decides what meaning the words would convey to an ordinary reasonable person or reader using their general knowledge and common sense. 

It is irrelevant what meaning was intended by the maker or understood by the claimant.

The ministers’ case was that the article had defamed them in two ways. First, it made it to seem that the ministers had taken advantage of the absence of checks and balances or disclosure requirements to conduct their property transactions in a non-transparent manner.

Second, they sought to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny, including scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering.

Justice Lim found that the first element was made out, as an ordinary reader would understand the article to mean that Singapore’s current system for non-caveated GCB or mansion transactions lacked checks, balances or disclosure requirements, allowing such transactions to be kept secret or non-transparent.

She pointed to the article’s headline, “Singapore Mansion Deals are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy”, as well as the first bullet point under the headline stating “More people buy homes with trusts, hiding owners’ identities” and the article’s opening line “Singapore’s ultra-rich are increasingly cloaking their purchases of mansions in secrecy”.

She listed several other paragraphs from the article in the same vein.

Justice Lim said the headline, bullet point and first paragraph immediately conveyed to a reader that GCB deals are being kept secret or hidden to avoid drawing attention to the purchaser’s wealth, social status and identity.

She also found that the article conveys to the reader that a buyer would pay a premium to a seller for a deal to be kept “quiet” or “off-radar”.

The editorial placement of Dr Tan’s transaction under the heading “Non-Caveated Deals”, read in context, would lead a reader to draw the inference that his purchase was conducted without the usual transparency that a caveat affords, and that he had taken advantage of the capacity that the absence of a caveat permits, said Justice Lim.

She found that readers would understand Mr Shanmugam’s transaction as an example of the trust mechanism described in the article as a way to maintain privacy from scrutiny.

Justice Lim disagreed with Bloomberg’s position that the article was concerned with trends and contained nothing defamatory.

She said the defamatory character of the second element claimed by the ministers lies not in any explicit accusation but in the inference it invites – that the ministers sought to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny that might extend to money laundering.

She found that the second element was also made out, and that the article defamed both ministers.

Since all people who procure or participate in publishing libel, including the journalist, editor and publisher, are jointly and severally liable for the whole of the claimant’s damage, she found the publisher in this case and the author of the article jointly and severally liable for the damage suffered by the ministers as a result of the defamatory article.

This means Bloomberg and Mr Low are collectively responsible for paying the total amount of damages and it is possible for the claimants to pursue either one of them for the full amount of S$460,000. (CNA)

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The crackdown on scam compounds in Cambodia is leading some gangs to relocate to beach resorts and office buildings in Sri Lanka, in what may be the next phase of one of the world’s fastest-growing criminal industries.

A combination of visa-free travel, available building space, relatively strong telecommunications networks and a well-established informal money transfer system make the South Asian island nation an appealing destination for scammers, investigators say.

Authorities in Sri Lanka have set up a new cybercrimes unit and say they’ve arrested more than 1,000 people this year alone, most in western beach areas where tourists flock or in the capital, Colombo. “Police, along with the immigration department and the central bank, are working as a collective effort to see that this is being controlled,” said assistant police superintendent Fredrick Wootler. 

Still, observers say the country has a brief window to get its arms around what are fast-moving and increasingly sophisticated operators. “In Sri Lanka there are issues with implementing our laws, the fact that we don’t necessarily crack down on these companies – they simply use tourist visas,” Dilrukshi Handunnetti, director at the Centre for Investigative Reporting Sri Lanka, said.

When officers descended on one west coast property in April, they found more than 150 foreign nationals allegedly running a cyber-scam operation. Days later, police raided a multistory apartment building near Colombo and arrested another 120 foreign nationals.

As authorities step up the pressure, some operators appear to be shifting from large compounds to hotels, apartment buildings and office space that can be rented quickly and abandoned just as fast.

“This is happening in ways that are unfortunately even more difficult for us to keep our eyes on,” said Erin West, founder of anti-scam nonprofit Operation Shamrock. “I think we’ve created such skilled workers, whether they wanted to be or not, that they can operate really in any kind of environment.”

A report by a US congressional committee in July last year warned fraud networks appear to be relocating into environments marked by “regulatory stress” – jurisdictions with weak enforcement capabilities but strong digital infrastructure. 

Some of the suspected centres in Sri Lanka may be staffed by escapees from Southeast Asia’s scam centres who, with limited alternate work opportunities, are choosing to put their newfound skills to use, scam investigators said. 

Sri Lanka’s ascendancy reflects a broader pattern of scam operations that are appearing far beyond their traditional strongholds in places like the United Arab Emirates, Timor-Leste, Fiji and parts of Africa, raising concerns transnational gangs are becoming increasingly global.

China is one country paying attention. It was Chinese pressure in part that led Cambodia, a key ally, to clamp down earlier this year. The Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka released a statement in mid-March saying it was “closely following” reports of arrests of suspected scammers, including Chinese nationals. 

“Cases like these pose immense harm,” the statement said, citing the country’s developed telecommunications infrastructure, favourable geographic location and the “kindness and friendliness of its people” for an increase in scam operations.

There’s also a long history of Chinese workers living and working in Sri Lanka, in part due to Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects, potentially making it easier for scam operators to disappear into the diaspora.

“It’s not unusual to see entire apartment complexes and shopping complexes, and sometimes even neighbourhoods inhabited by Chinese,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, an independent researcher who has spent more than two decades writing about Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan authorities should look to other countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, on how to prevent scam operators taking hold, versus Cambodia where they clearly did, according to Julia Dickson, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It comes down to, are officials keen to actually take action, or are they benefiting substantially like those in Cambodia?,” she said. Sri Lanka ranked 107 out of 182 countries and territories in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, just above Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Laos.

A representative of Sri Lanka’s ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sri Lanka currently allows visa-fee free entry for about half a dozen countries, including China, and has approved plans to increase that to 40 to boost tourism. Visitor arrivals increased again in May after slowing in March and April, likely due to the prolonged conflict in the Middle East. 

It’s too soon to know if human trafficking is occurring with the scam operations in Sri Lanka, according to Stephanie Baroud, a criminal intelligence analyst with the human trafficking and migrant smuggling unit at Interpol in Lyon. “It’s not yet something that is acknowledged” or reported, she said. But she added loose visa policies can be an enabling factor in trafficking.

Sri Lanka also lacks a legal framework equipped to tackle cyber-scam operations, while easy access to SIM cards and widespread connectivity have made it an attractive base for fraud networks, according to Hattotuwa. The country’s informal Undiyal money-transfer system may also provide a grey-market channel for moving scam proceeds, including cryptocurrency, beyond the reach of regulators.

Sri Lanka’s Financial Intelligence Unit is working with local law enforcement agencies in combating illicit fund flows, according to Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe. He declined to comment on whether Sri Lanka is working with foreign authorities.

One immediate imperative is better sharing of information on what is happening in Sri Lanka. Cuts to US foreign aid have weakened civil society groups that often provide early warnings about emerging scam hubs.

“We have a lot less information about what’s going on on the ground,” said CSIS’s Dickson, making information sharing even more critical to tracking fraud networks. (Bloomberg)

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Economists sharply cut Sri Lanka’s growth outlook for the rest of the year as curbs on imports and still-limited reserves persist, even as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases bailout loans and the authorities work towards debt-restructuring efforts, the latest Bloomberg survey of economists showed.

According to Bloomberg News, the economic contraction is predicted to more than double from 4.4 per cent to 9.9 per cent in the first quarter. Growth is likely to bounce back from the second quarter, though at a slower pace of 1 per cent from an estimated 2.9 per cent previously.

For the full year, Sri Lanka’s gross domestic product estimate was revised to 0.7 per cent from 2.7 per cent, the survey showed.

Last year, the South Asian nation grappled with its worst economic crisis since independence as US dollar shortages and shrinking reserves, together with an infamous organic fertiliser policy, led to crop failures and severe shortages of food and fuel. People took to the streets to protest, eventually forcing a change in leadership as the economy nearly came to a halt and inflation surged.

While there are signs of stability with food and fuel imports coming in and the IMF approving a US$3 billion loan, some economists say the current economic situation is nowhere close to pre-pandemic normalcy.

“Conditions are still weak, but are tilted to the upside,” said Andrew Vogel, an economist at S&P Global.

He added that Sri Lanka has very few usable foreign reserves and significant restrictions on imports. Moreover, a still-ongoing moratorium on external debt payments pending restructuring agreements is keeping conditions uncertain.

The island nation’s double-digit inflation, which is Asia’s fastest, is expected to persist this year, the Bloomberg survey showed. Economists foresaw consumer prices surging to around 28.8 per cent in the second quarter and averaging around 25 per cent for the year.

They also forecast a cumulative 100-basis-point hike in the benchmark rates in the second quarter. They expected this to hold at least until the end of the third quarter before the easing cycle begins.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has kept its key rate at the highest level since August 2001 to support growth, despite price gains remaining stubbornly high at 50.3 per cent in March. The monetary authority predicts that headline inflation will slow to single-digit levels by end-2023. (NewsWire)

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