The man, 35, had provided corporate secretarial services to local and foreign clients in 2020 and 2021 through a firm he owned here, the police said in a statement on Oct 8.

He recruited two people to serve as directors for two companies, and allegedly told them that they do not need to have any supervisory oversight over the companies or their bank accounts.

One of the two was asked to open a corporate bank account and the other was told to give up control of a corporate bank account. The Russian man also recruited the woman, 42, to be a local director of several companies.

She then opened a bank account, and took control of other accounts of two companies for which she was appointed a director, the police said. Investigations revealed that the man later conspired with her to allow unidentified people to control these two bank accounts, the police added.

Between March and June 2021, one of the accounts received more than $300,000 in various currencies from fraud and investment scams targeting foreign victims, according to the police.