HKSAR v. KONG YIK FAI

DCCC1006/2011

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 1006 OF 2011

----------------------

----------------------

--------------------------

Reasons for Sentence

--------------------------

1.  Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to three charges of dealing with property knowing or believing it to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence, contrary to section 25(1) and (3) of the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance.

2.  Charges 1 and 2 relate to two bank accounts opened by you - Charge 1 – DBS, and Charge 2 – The Dah Sing Bank Limited - both opened on 7 May 2010, which held funds totalling $485,609.19 and $96,906.83 respectively and which you knew or had reasonable grounds to believe represented in whole or in part the proceeds of an indictable offence.  The period that Charge 1 spans is from 7 May 2010 to 29 June 2010, and Charge 2, 7 May 2010 to 22 June 2010.  Charge 3 relates to withdrawals which you made on 28 separate occasions from remittance agents between 12 March 2010 and 17 May 2010 in the total sum of $747,910.86.  The total amount that you dealt with at the two bank accounts and the remittance agencies therefore was $1,330,426.88.   

3.  The Summary of Facts which you have agreed establish that in relation to the two bank accounts the moneys that were remitted to the two accounts, some from overseas, were withdrawn on the same day or soon after the transfers.  At the time of the withdrawals you were in Hong Kong and you never made any report of loss of your ID card, bank passbook or ATM card.

4.  The facts also establish that with regard to the remittances, you collected a total of 28 such remittances at   Western Union franchise outlets in Hong Kong, those remittances having been made by overseas customers.

5.  Upon your arrest on 26 June 2010 you told the police under caution, inter alia, that you were asked by a friend called Ah Kai to collect the money but that you did not know the source.  As regards the bank accounts, these were opened up at the suggestion of Ah Kai, to whom you passed the bank card and bank passbook.  You received in total $10,000 as a reward from Ah Kai in respect of the remittances at the remittance agencies and at DBS, and a reward of $900 in respect of the remittances from Dah Sing Bank.  You also told the police that Ah Kai had told you that the moneys collected from the remittance agencies and moneys remitted to the two bank accounts was related to tax evasion.     

6.  You are 26 years of age and single.  You have three previous convictions, two of which are unrelated, but your last conviction in DCCC102/2011 on 10 March this year is for a similar offence as the present offences.  That offence also took place between May and June of last year and involved the sum of $1.8 million, slightly more than the present offences are concerned with, and you received a sentence of 22 months’ imprisonment after having pleaded guilty.  That would have represented a starting point of 2 years and 9 months’ imprisonment.  

7.  Had the present case been dealt with at the same time as DCCC102/2011, the court would have been dealing with offences which concerned the laundering of a total of $3.1 million, which I find would warrant a starting point of 4 years’ imprisonment or thereabout.

8.  In order to achieve that and bearing in mind that you are already serving 22 months’ imprisonment, and taking account, as I do, of the size of this operation, the role that you played, the amount involved and the relatively small reward that you received for opening the accounts and collecting the remittances, I adopt a starting point on Charge 1 of 21 months’ imprisonment.  This will be reduced by one-third to reflect your plea of guilty, coming to 14 months’ imprisonment on Charge 1.  On Charge 2, my starting point is one of 18 months’ imprisonment, which will be similarly reduced by one-third to reflect your plea, coming to 12 months’ imprisonment on Charge 2.  On Charge 3, I adopt 2 years’ imprisonment as my starting point.  This will be reduced to 16 months to reflect your plea.

9.  Due to the question of totality of sentence, I order the sentences on all three charges to run concurrently with each other, arriving at a total sentence of 16 months’ imprisonment in all, 10 months of which I order to run consecutively to the sentence you are currently serving in DCCC102/2011, and the balance of 6 months concurrently.