Singapore, 3 June 2021… The Monetary Authority of Singapore has issued five-year prohibition orders (POs) against Mr Younis Adnan Mohammed, following his convictions in the State Courts for offences involving fraud or dishonesty, namely forgery and providing false information to a public servant.
2 Under the POs, which will take effect from 2 June 2021, Mr Younis is prohibited from providing any financial advisory services, taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act. He is also prohibited from performing any regulated activity and from taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any capital markets services firm under the Securities and Futures Act.
3 In March 2019, Mr Younis was a representative of investment management firm, Wellington Management Singapore Pte Ltd (Wellington), when in his personal capacity, he deceived online trading platform OANDA Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (OANDA) into crediting $50,000 into his personal trading account.
4 Mr Younis held an online trading account with OANDA and had a prefunding agreement with the company. In order to meet a margin call in his trading account, Mr Younis forged screenshots of a bank transfer and his bank account details, to show that $50,000 had been transferred to OANDA when no such transfer had been made. After OANDA reported the matter to the police, Mr Younis lied to the investigation officer that a third person had impersonated him to open the trading account with OANDA.
5 On 29 May 2020, Mr Younis pleaded guilty and was convicted of one count of forgery and one count of providing false information to a public servant under section 465 and section 182 of the Penal Code respectively. Mr Younis was sentenced to 16 weeks’ imprisonment.
6 While Mr Younis had committed the offences in his personal capacity and is no longer an appointed representative in Singapore, the POs were issued against him to safeguard the integrity of and trust in Singapore’s financial sector. Mr Younis’ convictions had given MAS reason to believe that he will not perform financial advisory or capital markets services honestly.
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