Having successfully moulded itself as a money laundering haven in the 1980s onwards, Singapore had first targeted and garnered funds from Indonesian Chinese who were targeted by racial discrimination back in Indonesia.
The 1997 Asia Financial Crisis proved to be a boon for Singapore with the onset of ethnic cleansing of Chinese in Indonesia, where wealthy Indonesian Chinese flocked and repatriated funds into the Singapore banking system and real estate - helping to propel the resource-strapped country.
Fast forward to 2013 - current, Singapore has yet emerged on global headlines as the first and final line of illegal money laundering. This time by the ruling political member in neighboring Malaysia who siphoned off USD681m vide a network of banks in Singapore in the 1MDB fiasco.
Given that it would have been impossible for the Singapore authorities and Central Bank (the Monetary Authority of Singapore or MAS) to miss out on the large quantum of fund flow, it has been indeed surprising that Singapore had remained surprisingly quiet on the 1MDB fiasco throughout much of the earlier investigations up till as late as 2015.
It was only with the Swiss and more prominently the US investigators having openly announced their intentions on the investigations, that the Singapore authorities including MAS seemingly " sprung alive." In that, they were ' surprisingly' fast in coming out with evidence of wrong-doing and targeted individuals/institutions - which naturally pointed to the conclusion that the Singapore authorities were already in knowledge and complicit to the transactions and laundering activities (but why were they not acting before the U.S./Swiss authorities?).
In the realm of pragmatically pursuing national interests (at all costs, and the expense of other sovereigns), the 1MDB fiasco has proven to be exactly that.
Indeed if recent memories were to be recalled, the leading Singapore political leader has continuously warmed up to his Malaysian counterpart (who was the leading perpetrator to the 1MDB fiasco) in recent years - possibly with the former in knowledge of much more hindsight of his new-found chum's hidden skeletons. In which one of the much publicized but least scrutinized being the ceding of prime stretches of Malaysian railroad lands in Singapore (to Singapore) in exchange for some land development rights in Singapore - in which the exchange and potential value (of exchange) is very much in favour of Singapore - which begs the question of " how did a bigger country lose so much leverage in a bilateral negotiations with a puny neighboring state?" that is well-worth in-depth scrutiny and study by political scientists.
As the Swiss/US authorities reveals revelations on the 1MDB fiasco and trails of corruption and money laundering, with individuals arrested/charged and institutions fined and in certain cases bank licenses being rescinded (by the Singapore MAS) - very smartly to present a semblance of impartiality (on the part of Singapore and its regulators as a self-proclaimed financial hub or laundering haven?) at the nick of the moment. It is of interesting question and worth examining if Singapore is indeed serious in the first place of being clean - given its history and engineered past to benefit from proceeds of corruption, from the ghosts of Suharto, Taib just to mention a few.
With the success of Indonesian President Widodo's recent tax amnesty for wealthy Indonesians to repatriate funds long-stashed in Singapore back to Indonesia, and the initial confusion (or deliberate leg-dragging on Singapore's part?) by Singapore authorities' directives for all banks to redflag their (Indonesian) clients who are participating in the tax amnesty (i.e. who are ready to send their own money out of Singapore's banking system) - it is telling as to the real intentions of the well-engineered inner workings of Singapore Inc.
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