Cybercrime suspect fails in appeal to challenge police’s seizure of his belongings

SINGAPORE - A challenge by suspected cybercriminal Wang Yunhe against the police’s seizure of his belongings has been dismissed by Singapore’s highest court.

In written grounds of decision issued on Aug 4, the Court of Appeal said the legal process that Wang took to contest the legality of the seizure was “fundamentally flawed”.

The court also rejected Wang’s contention that the seizure was unlawful.

Wang, a Chinese national, is alleged to have created and distributed malware that compromised millions of residential computers around the world. He is facing extradition to the United States.

He was indicted in a Texas court on May 10, 2023, for conspiracy to commit computer fraud, aiding and abetting computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Wang was arrested in Singapore on May 24, 2024, after US authorities made a request for his extradition as well as the seizure of evidence and fruits of his crimes.

During the arrest, 50 items belonging to Wang were seized by the police.

He has been in remand since, pending the committal hearing to determine whether he should be extradited.

Wang has repeatedly objected to his extradition in court.

Changes were made to the Extradition Act in 2022 to allow fugitives to consent to their extradition. This is in line with international practice, to save state resources and prevent unnecessary detention.

On Feb 21, 2025, Wang filed an application, among others, to seek a court ruling that 12 of the items were unlawfully seized by the police.

These comprised bank cards, mobile phones, flash drives, a laptop and a computer processing unit.

Wang argued that the request from the US was too general and vague for local authorities to identify and seize the 12 items.

He also argued that there was no evidence to show that Singapore officers had reasonable grounds for suspecting that the seized items were either evidence or fruits of the crimes.

The application was heard, and dismissed, by a magistrate in proceedings under the Extradition Act.

Wang then applied for permission to begin judicial review proceedings to quash the magistrate’s decision, but this was dismissed by a High Court judge.

He next appealed against the judge’s decision.

No jurisdiction

The Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal on July 9, issued detailed reasons for its decision on Aug 4.

The three-judge court said the initial application should not have been made to the magistrate to begin with.

The judges noted that the Extradition Act does not include a mechanism by which a fugitive may challenge the police’s seizure of his belongings before a magistrate.

“In our view, the magistrate had no jurisdiction to hear the application because it was in substance a judicial review application to set aside the police’s seizure of the seized Items.”

The judges said only the High Court has the jurisdiction to scrutinise the legality of the police’s conduct.

If Wang truly believed that the police had seized the items unlawfully, he should have filed a judicial review application to the High Court against the police, said the court.

This process required Wang to apply for permission to start proceedings within three months of the seizure.

The judges noted that Wang’s application to the magistrate was filed close to nine months after the seizure took place, which meant he was out of time to bring a judicial review application.

“By applying to the magistrate, Mr Wang effectively circumvented this requirement,” said the court, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Hri Kumar Nair and Justice Debbie Ong.

The court said the parties may have overlooked the magistrate’s lack of jurisdiction because the application was bundled together with other applications related to the extradition process, which were within the magistrate’s jurisdiction to hear.

The judges added that even assuming the initial application was correctly made, Wang was wrong to have invoked the judicial review process as a first resort to challenge the magistrate’s decision.

The court said Wang should have first filed an application for criminal revision.

In addition, Wang failed to establish an arguable case of reasonable suspicion to quash the magistrate’s decision, said the court.

The judges said under the Extradition Act, the role of Singapore authorities is primarily to facilitate the extradition request, not to investigate the alleged offences.

Therefore, officers are entitled to rely on information provided by the requesting state in relation to the items to be seized, unless there is clear material to show that the information is wrong or that the items bear no connection with the alleged offences.