MAS Issues POs against Trader Convicted of Committing Fraud upon OANDA

After the State Courts found him guilty of forgery and providing false information to a public servant, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued five-year prohibition orders (POs) against Mr. Younis Mohammed.

According to the POs, 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. In addition, he is 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.

In March 2019, when he was a representative of Wellington Management Singapore, Younis provided deceptive information to OANDA Asia Pacific and tricked them into crediting $50,000 into his personal trading account.

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, he 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, Younis lied to the investigation officer that a third person had impersonated him to open the trading account with OANDA.

In May 2020, 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. Younis was sentenced to 16 weeks' imprisonment.