HK$1.2 billion to HK$2.2 billion involved, depending on calculation method
A money laundering syndicate was busted on Tuesday in a joint operation by HK and Macau police, with 22 suspects from Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland arrested, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said at a special press conference yesterday.
While the local police said the case involved HK$1.1 billion, their Hong Kong counterparts put the figure at HK$2.2 billion.
Lei underlined that five of the 22 suspects who were arrested in Macau include two Hong Kong jobless men surnamed Chen and Tse, aged 24 and 31 respectively, while the two other male suspects, surnamed Chong and Lam, are locals aged 37 and 23 respectively. Chong is unemployed.
According to Lei, the fifth suspect arrested in Macau is surnamed Chung, aged 33, who worked as a salesman with Lam in a telecom shop in Zape.
According to Lei, the joint operation between the Hong Kong and Macau police was initiated on March 31, with eight suspects arrested on the next day. Lei said that the eight suspects laundered money using virtual currency, and the Judiciary Police believe, according to Lei, that more suspects are still operating in Macau.
The police then discovered multiple Hong Kong bank accounts belonging to the syndicate, Lei said, adding that the bank accounts were used for laundering money from fraud schemes run by the syndicate, which started its scamming operations in October 2020. Lei pointed out that 32 victims were scammed out of HK$84 million by the syndicate, including internet love swindles and government impersonator phone scams.
Lei said that on Tuesday afternoon, another joint operation code-named “Deferscheme” was launched to apprehend 11 male and six female suspects in Hong Kong and the five suspects in Macau on the same day.
According to Lei, the syndicate laundered over HK$ 1.1 billion proceeds through 181 bank accounts set up by the suspects, their family members and friends. Lei did not reveal how much the people opening accounts for laundering the money were paid, nor whether the police would arrest them.
Lei said the HK$1.1 billion came from unidentified sources abroad, besides the syndicate’s own scam operation, adding that the syndicate had withdrawn over HK$350 million from ATMs since its operation began.
According to Lei, during the police operation in Macau, Chen and Tse were picked up in a hotel guestroom in Zape, along with HK$115,000 cash, 102 bank cards, six mobile phones and other valuables which all were seized.
Lei said HK$1.89 million related to 12 of the 32 scams since October 2020 was transferred through the duo’s bank accounts, and from December 2021 to this month the duo had withdrawn cash more than 1,000 times from ATMs, netting more than HK$28.4 million in cash from the laundering accounts and unidentified sources overseas.
Lei said Chong was apprehended in his flat near Hac Sa Beach, where HK$874,000 in cash, 33 bank cards and two mobile phones were seized. The two salesmen Lam and Chung, Lei said, were arrested at the telecom shop in Zape, while HK$1.48 million in cash, two mobile phones, and password breakers were seized from them.
Lei said that the salesmen were responsible for buying the virtual currency in their telecom store with the scammed money, selling the virtual currency on international websites and depositing the proceeds into the syndicate’s bank accounts to launder the money.
According to Lei, while the Hong Kong duo confessed that they had withdrawn cash from the ATMs, they refused to admit they were involved in money laundering, and claimed that the money was not from illegal activities. Lei said Chong told the police that he had been merely driven the suspects to withdraw money and bought virtual currency, while the two salesmen refused to cooperate. The five suspects were sent to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing money laundering and organised crime membership charges.
Hong Kong media yesterday quoted the police there as saying that the total sum laundered by the syndicate amounted to HK$2.2 billion, i.e., double the amount mentioned by their Macau counterparts.
A spokeswoman for the Judiciary Police told The Macau Post Daily after the press conference that they have a different method of calculating the amount laundered by the syndicate than the Hong Kong police, adding that the Hong Kong police counted the amounts sent and those received as two separate sums of money, while the Macau police combined the two transactions as one, and thus the amount mentioned by the Hong Kong police is double the one mentioned by their local counterparts.
The five suspects being escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle yesterday. Photos: William Chan
Evidence seized from the suspects such as cash and phones is displayed at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters yesterday.
