HKSAR v. JOHN LOUDY SARYOWAN

DCCC 104/2025

[2026] HKDC 133

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 104 OF 2025

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REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Charge

1.  The defendant pleads guilty to one count of using false instruments. 

Facts

2.  On 22 October 2024, the defendant and a woman arrived in Hong Kong from Japan on visitor status.  They stayed in a hotel. 

3.  The next day, ie, 23 October 2024, the two went to HSBC in Central. There, the defendant requested to open a bank account.  The woman acted as an interpreter for the defendant. 

4.  The defendant first said in simple English to the bank staff that he did business in Japan and he got a cashier’s cheque for investment.  He had brought the cheque here to open a bank account.  There was further exchange between the defendant and the bank staff.  The woman accompanying the defendant acted as his Japanese/Mandarin interpreter. 

5.  The defendant presented to the staff a cashier’s cheque in the amount of US$10 million purportedly issued to the defendant by HSBC Bank PLC (“Exhibit 1”)  and a bank confirmation letter also purportedly issued by HSBC Bank PLC (“Exhibit 2”).  The letter said the account of one Haryanto at HSBC Bank PLC had US$10 million available for the purpose of investment and the funds concerning Exhibit 1 were good, clean and legally obtained.  The defendant also presented to the staff his passport and a photocopy of Exhibit 1. 

6.  The bank staff found the documents suspicious.  She reported the matter to her supervisor.  The supervisor looked at the documents and concluded that Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 were both false.  Regarding Exhibit 1, the paper texture of the cashier order was very rough.  A genuine cashier order should not contain the embossed numbers and embossed HSBC chop.  A genuine cashier order should not contain the wordings, “Cashier’s Check”, “HSBC HEAD OFFICE” and the HSBC logo.  The signatures of the two chief ranking officers of HSBC Bank PLC should not appear in a genuine cashier order and the numbers after the decimal place should not be printed in red.  Regarding Exhibit 2, a genuine bank document should not have any QR code. 

7.  The supervisor then called the police.  Police came soon and arrested the defendant. 

8.  The defendant now accepts in court that he used the two false instruments and had the intention of inducing others to accept them as genuine to the prejudice of HSBC. 

Record

9.  The defendant is now aged 62.  He was born in Indonesia.  He had lived in Japan for years and he has no previous conviction in Hong Kong. 

Mitigation

10.  Defence Counsel says the defendant has high blood pressure and a poor liver. He has not breached any law previously.  He had lived in Japan for 41 years. He studied there and had worked for many years before retiring in 2013.  He was living with his wife in Japan before his arrest here. 

11.  Counsel says the defendant opened some language schools after retirement.  However, the business went bad and the defendant started to have cash flow problems.  He then came to know that person, Haryanto, who gave him the cashier’s cheque and the letter in question. 

12.  Counsel says the defendant was originally told that someone would present the cheque to the bank.  However, the person who was supposed to do the job did not appear.  The defendant then felt he would present the cheque himself.  For that purpose, he brought along the woman to the bank as an interpreter for him. 

13.  Counsel says the offence perpetrated by the defendant was not a sophisticated one.  It was doomed to fail.  The bank suffered no loss and the defendant had not received his reward. 

14.  Counsel agrees that immediate imprisonment is inesvitable.  He refers to a few cases including HKSAR v Bolanos Brudencio Jao, CACC 10/2020, where the Court of Appeal approved a sentence of 4 years after trial against that defendant who came to Hong Kong to present a false instrument to a bank; the sum involved was US$943 million. 

15.  The other two cases cited by counsel are District Court cases of similar nature.  Counsel points out both sentencing judges merely adopted 30 months’ imprisonment as starting point.  The sums involved were huge, ie, US$2,000 million and $995 million respectively. 

16.  Counsel says the amount in the present case is not an extreme one.  The chance of the cheque being accepted by HSBC was low.  The staff spotted the falsity immediately.  Counsel submits that a starting point at the low end would be appropriate. 

Sentence

17.  The defendant is aged 62 now.  He came to Hong Kong from Japan to present the two false instruments to HSBC, hoping the bank would accept those documents as genuine to grant him US$10 million. 

18.  The two false instruments, Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2, were not of the highest quality but they were still persuasive to a certain degree.  The two bank staff members had sharp eyes.  Of course, they had been trained.  They were not deceived.  The risk to the bank was low.  Yet, the defendant came to Hong Kong to perpetrate a crime to undermine the banking system here.  While he acted alone in Hong Kong, he had an accomplice in Japan.  Immediate imprisonment is inevitable.  In my view, the sentences in the two District Court cases cited by counsel are really too lenient. 

19.  Having considered the defendant’s clear record and his counsel’s mitigation, I decide that a starting point of 3 years’ imprisonment would be appropriate.  After one-third discount for his early plea of guilt, I sentence the defendant to 24 months’ imprisonment.