Driven by uncertainty over potential racial violence, and lured by opaque banking laws to keep out prying eyes, Singapore remains the favorite bolt-hole for Indonesia’s rich, who are buying up expensive new flats about as fast as they come onto the market.
Among them were crooked Indonesian bankers who plundered more than US$13.5 billion from the Indonesian central bank's recapitalization funds to try to put 48 ailing banks back together and fled for the island republic. They moved most of the money across the strait, where Singapore’s banking laws are among the world’s most impregnable. Indonesia has made half-hearted attempts to get the bankers and the money back, to no avail. Full story
