HKSAR v. TAM PO FONG

DCCC 1240/2025

[2026] HKDC 1292

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 1240 OF 2025

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REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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1.  This is a money laundering case. The defendant is charged with one count of dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence, contrary to section 25(1) and (3) of the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, Cap 455 (OSCO).

2.  The particulars of the offence alleged that the defendant, between the 28^th day of April 2022 and the 16^th day of November 2022, both days inclusive, in Hong Kong, knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe that property namely a total sum of $12,390,861 Hong Kong currency in a bank account with OCBC Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (formerly known as OCBC Wing Hang Bank Limited), account number 822883052051, in whole or in part directly or indirectly represented any person’s proceeds of an indictable offence, dealt with the said property.  The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge, admitted the relevant facts and was convicted accordingly.

The Admitted Facts

3.  A victim of a romance scam was deceived to transfer in total HK$4 million to an OCBC bank account numbered 822883052051 held by a company called DONGZEHONG Limited between 7 June 2022 and 12 November 2022.

4.  Police investigation revealed that the said account was opened on 28 April 2022 and the defendant is the sole signatory of that account.

5.  Between 28 April 2022 and 16 November 2022, that account recorded 24 deposits for the total sum of HK$12,390,861 and 49 withdrawals for the total sum of the exact same amount.  All the deposits were withdrawn in mirror pattern.

6.  Company record revealed that the defendant was at all material times the sole director cum shareholder of the said company, being the owner of the subject account.  Business registration record showed the date of commencement of business by that company was on 12 April 2022, where the reported business nature was trading electrical products.

7.  The defendant was arrested on 12 July 2023.  In the cautioned video-recorded interview, the defendant denied having opened the said account or incorporated any company in Hong Kong.  The defendant claimed that she lent her Hong Kong identity card to her ex-boyfriend in early 2022.

OSCO Application

8.  The prosecution, pursuant to section 27(2) of OSCO, seek to furnish information as contained in the statement dated 29 May 2026 prepared by Chief Inspector Li Yiu Nam to demonstrate the prevalence of this specified offence as well as the nature and extent of harm, whether directly or indirectly, caused to the community by recent occurrences of this specified offence.

9.  Clearly, this kind of deception and money laundering cases is prevalent and on the increase over the recent years.  For instance, according to the statistics provided, the total number of deception and money laundering cases was 16,643 in year 2020, it kept increasing every year and up to year 2025, the total number of cases reached 47,701.  Same for the reported loss and / or the proceeds laundered.  It was about $3,000 million in year 2020.  Again, it climbed up every year and reached about $7,600 million in year 2025.  And for cases with stooge accounts being used, about $1,800 million were involved in 2020.  It increased to close to $4,000 million in 2025.  Without a doubt, very serious harm caused to the community and its members.

Defendant’s Background

10.  The defendant was born in 1984 and is now 42 years old.  She was educated up to secondary two and has been unemployed for over 10 years and relying on CSSA for approximately $13,000 a month.

11.  It is reported that the defendant suffered from Hepatitis B and asthma, and had a history of drug abuse.  She is unmarried but has three sons aged 6 to 11 who do not live with her.  The defendant has a total of 6 previous criminal convictions, 4 of those were possession of dangerous drugs and 2 were shoplifting.

Mitigation

12.  Ms Ho for the defendant handed in a written mitigation submitted that there are no sentencing guidelines for the subject offence of money laundering. The amount of money laundered is the major consideration and should be reflected in sentencing (see HKSAR v Lam Ka Sin [2021] 2 HKLRD 32 at paragraph 27 of the judgment).

13.  It is also submitted that in the case Secretary for Justice v Wan Kwok Keung [2012] 1 HKLRD 201, it was said at paragraph 15 of the judgment, reciting the case of HKSAR v Hsu Yu Yi [2010] 5 HKLRD 545, that in a number of money laundering cases the sentencing starting point is 3 years or so where the “black money” involved is between $1 million and $2 million, 4 years or so where it is between $3 million and $6 million, and could be over 5 years where it is above $10 million.

14.  The court is also invited to bear in mind the non-exhaustive list of features mentioned by the Court of Appeal in HKSAR v Boma [2012] 2 HKLRD 33 when dealing with offences of money laundering.

15.  For the background of the commission of this offence, it is submitted that, in 2022, the defendant’s ex-boyfriend convinced her to open a business and bank account under her name.  The defendant admitted that she subsequently had reasons to suspect that the account was used unlawfully, and on that basis, she pleaded guilty to the subject offence.

16.  In addition to confirming the background information as said, defence counsel submitted that the eldest son aged 11 of the defendant is now taken care of by both the defendant and his biological father.  While the other two younger children were in and out of foster homes.

17.  Due to the defendant’s history of drug abuse, she started to develop psychosis and continued depression.  For the past 10 years, she had been a frequent psychiatric patient of hospitals.

18.  In sentencing, the court is urged to consider a number of factors, including: (a) there is no evidence to suggest that the defendant knew or was involved in the predicate offence; (b) there is no international element; (c) there is only one victim involved; (d) there is no evidence to suggest that the defendant was personally involved in operating the account in question; (e) the defendant was unaware of the amount of money laundered in the account; and (f) the length of time that this offence was committed was less than 8 months.

19.  The defence also submitted that there were exceptional circumstances in this case, most importantly, about the defendant’s low education, her simple-mindedness, her vulnerability to romantic partners and her depression.  It is suggested that a starting point of no more than 60 months should be adopted. The defence has no objection to this OSCO application on the enhancement of the sentence, but submitted that in light of the defendant’s personal background and all the circumstances, the defence invited the court to enhance the sentence for not more than 15%, suggesting that a recent Court of First Instance sentencing case HKSAR v Zeng Yanjun (曾燕軍) HCCC 386/2025 (date of judgment being 24 June 2026) could be followed.

20.  It was further suggested that a further reduction of a total of 6 months could be considered for the defendant’s commission of this offence because of her vulnerable state and her easily influenced nature, as well as her need to take care of her children.

Sentence

21.  There are no specific sentencing guidelines for money laundering offences for obvious reasons, as the facts of the cases of this kind can vary so much.  Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal in various cases has set down or recited the relevant sentencing principles.

22.  For example, in HKSAR v Boma [2012] 2 HKLRD 33, at paragraph 40 of the judgment, the Vice-President Mr Justice Stock (as he then was) listed out some of the relevant factors: (a) the nature of the predicate offence, if known, and the penalty available for the predicate offence; (b) the state of knowledge of the offender about the nature of the predicate offence and the fact that the funds were the proceeds of an indictable offence; (c) whether there was an international dimension; (d) the sophistication of the offence, including the degree of planning and whether deceit was practised to achieve the objective; (e) whether the offence was committed by or on behalf of an organised criminal syndicate; (f) whether there was one transaction or many, and the length of time over which the offence was committed; (g) whether the offender has continued to launder funds after he had discovered as a fact that the funds were the proceeds of an offence, or after he has discovered the nature of an offence which was serious; (h) the role of the offender and the acts performed by him with regard also to whether a benefit had been received, and if so, the nature and size of the benefit.

23.  In SJ v Wan Kwok Keung [2012] 1 HKLRD 201, the Court of Appeal, by reciting an earlier case of HKSAR vs Hsu Yu Yi [2010] 5 HKLRD 536, suggested that when the money laundered was over $10 million, the starting point could be over 5 years (see paragraph 15 of the judgment).

24.  Having considered all the circumstances of this case, including the amount of money laundered being about $12 million, in a single bank account involving 73 deposits and withdrawals in mirror form over a period of less than 7 months, and a lack of evidence that the defendant had knowledge of the predicate offence of fraud or deception and no international element involved, I agree to adopt the starting point as suggested by the defence, that is 5 years’ imprisonment or 60 months’ imprisonment. This is already a lenient one to be adopted.

25.  I have considered the background report dated 6 July 2026 as suggested by the defence to be obtained, in particular the conclusion at paragraph 14 of the report, where the probation officer observed that “the current offence does not appear to be related to her (that is the defendant’s) mental or emotional state, nor could it be attributed to it.”.  I do not consider the defendant’s background and her reason for committing this offence, namely coming from a broken family, turned wayward since early age when started taking dangerous drugs and being easily to be affected by undesirable peers including her intimate partners, amount to any substantial mitigation for sentencing purpose.

26.  The only and most important mitigation is the defendant’s timely guilty plea, for which I shall give her the full one-third discount, so the said starting point of 5 years or 60 months is to be reduced to 40 months’ imprisonment.

27.  Finally, there is the OSCO application for enhancement of sentence.  Both the prosecution and the defence provided me with the authority of HKSAR v Leung Yiu Fai, CACC 100/2014, where it was said at paragraphs 55 and 56 of the judgment that there is no statutory requirement for the extent of enhancement and that is to be decided by the sentencing judge’s discretion according to the individual case and those relevant circumstances.

28.  In the cases provided to me by the prosecution, HKSAR v Hung Yung Chun (洪永俊) [2011] 2 HKLRD 167, HKSAR v Cen Huakuo [2015] 2 HKLRD 951 and HKSAR v Lin Zong Yue (林宗悅) [2015] 3 HKLRD 182, the Court of Appeal adopted or agreed with an enhancement of one-third for similar OSCO applications.  I also came to notice a relatively recent case of 香港特別行政區訴楊鎧駿, CACC 135/2024 (judgment date of 13 June 2025) where the Court of Appeal when dealing with a telephone deception case but for the same reason of prevalence adopted a one-third enhancement (by reversing the sentencing judge’s enhancement of two-thirds) for a similar OSCO application.

29.  As said, the defence has no objection to this OSCO application but suggested an enhancement of 15% as that was done by the sentencing judge in a very recent Court of First Instance case of money laundering in HKSAR v Zeng Yanjun (曾燕軍) HCCC 386/2025 (judgment date of 24 June 2026).

30.  As rightly observed by both parties, according to the said statistics provided by the police, the number of money laundering cases, in particular involving the use of stooge accounts has significantly increased since 2020, and went up every year up to 2025. Whilst the offence is apparently prevalent and still remains so up to date, the most recent figures for January to April 2026 however appears to show a slight decline.

31.  Having considered all the circumstances, I have decided to enhance the sentence of 40 months by 20%, which I believe to be a lenient and just treatment of the defendant for this matter.  The final sentence of the defendant is therefore 48 months’ imprisonment.