HKSAR v. CHAN WUN TING

 DCCC668/2009

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 668 OF 2009

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.  Defendant, you pleaded guilty to two offences of dealing with property known or believed to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence, each contrary to sections 25(1) and 25(3) of the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, Cap.455.  You admitted the brief facts.  I convicted you.  The facts were as follows.

2.  Ziao Dai Yu, PW1, a Taiwanese, came to know a female Lin Jia-yi via the internet in August 2008.  In September 2008 Lin indicated she wished to place bets at an entertainment website.  Lin asked PW1 to open a betting account for her and asked PW1 to lend her the capital for the said betting account.

3.  On 19 September 2008 PW1 remitted NT$68,000 to a person called Chik Chi-leung to open the betting account.  Later he was induced by a Mr Lau to make a further deposit of NT$130,000 into the account.  Subsequently Mr Lau informed PW1 that he had won NT$10 million but he had to pay 8 per cent commission in order to collect the prize.  Therefore, on 29 October 2008 PW1 remitted a sum of NT$523,537 to your bank account; that is, the Bank of Communication’s account.  On 6 November 2008 PW1 remitted a further sum of NT$541,179 to another individual’s account as commission.

4.  PW1 did not receive any prize money and he then realised it was a scam.  He had lost contact with Lin and the employees of the betting and entertainment website. 

5.  The offences arise from banking activities involving your bank accounts with the Bank of Communications and the Nanyang City Bank.  Police investigation showed that these two accounts had received funds from victims in investment frauds.  Almost the whole amount of each inward transfer into these two accounts was withdrawn on the same day and only an insignificant balance maintained.  Your Bank of Communications account was closed by the bank itself on 25 March this year.  Up to 15 March this year the Bank of Communications account had had two incoming transactions totalling $390,349.50 and six outgoing transactions totalling exactly the same amount.  Your Nanyang Bank account had 86 incoming transactions totalling $1,113.811.41 and 101 outgoing transactions totalling the same amount. 

6.  You were arrested on 15 March.  Interviewed under caution you said this.  You became acquainted with Brother Yeung, a Taiwanese, in July 2008.  He asked you to open bank accounts for his investment business and you would receive 1 per cent of money withdrawn from such accounts.  You opened these two accounts and gave passbooks and ATM cards to Brother Yeung.  Brother Yeung phoned you whenever money was to be withdrawn.  He returned your passbook to you to withdraw cash over the counter.  You did this 20 to 30 times withdrawing $1,113.811.41 from the Nanyang Bank account and $390,349.50 from the Bank of Communications.  By way of reward you received a sum of $15,000.

7.  You said that initially you were not suspicious of the source of the deposits but as more and more were made you felt there were some problems with them.  However, you were in need of money to repay gambling debts. 

8.  It is clear there existed grounds for you to believe the moneys received were going directly to proceeds of crime.  You have four previous convictions, none of which are similar. 

9.  On your behalf, Mr Tse entered mitigation.  He told me that you were poorly educated and had found it difficult to obtain reasonable employment.  You are presently employed or were employed until you were remanded as a kitchen assistant.  You are single, also that you had committed these offences out of a financial need especially to repay gambling debts. 

10.  He emphasised that your role was very much that of a foot soldier and that whilst you grew to be suspicious of the source of the money you had no idea as to what offences had actually been committed.  Very properly and helpfully he referred me to various authorities for sentence.  He very properly identified there was no aggravating feature in this case, being that the funds came from abroad there was an international aspect the funds having come from Taiwan. 

11.  He stressed that your level of active participation had been low and demonstrated this by reference to the number of ATM withdrawals.  Whilst conceding your criminal record he pointed out that there were no similar previous convictions.  You have, of course, pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity. 

12.  In sentencing you I took into account the nature of the offence, the facts of the case, the authorities to which I have been referred and the mitigation advanced.  I accept that your participation in this scheme was at a low level and very unsophisticated.  It is also clear that from the time of your arrest you were honest and co-operative with the police.  The money involved in this scam is about HK$1½ million.  There is the aggravating feature of these funds having come from Taiwan. 

13.  Money laundering is a very serious offence and reflects badly on the international reputation of Hong Kong.  I do note that you have not committed such an offence before.  As I indicated to Mr Tse, my practice and my approach in this case is to take an overview of the criminality.

14.  Please stand.  I take as a starting point 3 years’ imprisonment reduced to 2 years for your plea of guilty; that is, 2 years on each charge to be run concurrently, a total of 2 years’ imprisonment.