Hong Kong crime family arrested in HK$3 billion money-laundering investigation
Five members of a Hong Kong family accused of laundering more than HK$3 billion (US$387 million) through over 100 personal bank accounts have been arrested, along with the owner of a money exchange business, a senior customs official said on Monday.
According to investigators, the family, which consists of
the parents, two sons, and a daughter, had funnelled the cash through the
different accounts, which they had opened since early 2018.
Officers said the family had a total monthly income of about
HK$70,000, but had HK$30 million in two bank accounts, and owned two properties
worth another HK$15 million.
“The assets held by this family are not commensurate with
their profiles and backgrounds,” said Senior Superintendent Mark Woo Wai-kwan,
who leads the Syndicate Crimes Investigation Bureau. “We suspect this family
has a hidden income which may be the crime proceeds from assisting money
laundering.”
The case is the Customs and Excise Department’s biggest
involving money laundering in five years, and Woo said the funds had come from
unknown sources or shell companies.
“There were more than 6,000 suspicious financial
transactions, involving more than HK$3 billion. The biggest single transaction
was HK$22 million,” he said.
Woo said they were still looking into the origins of the
money and the types of illegal activities it involved, but a source said the
investigation indicated “some of the third party individuals or owners of the
shell companies involved were from mainland China”.
Officers first began investigating the family’s eldest son
early this year after a tip-off from a bank.
According to officials, the parents, aged 58 and 62, are
unemployed, while the eldest son, 34, is a technician, and their second son,
30, works as a manager at the money exchange company involved in the case. The
couple’s youngest daughter, aged 25, is a customer service officer.
Woo said he believed the family helped other syndicates to
launder the proceeds of crime in return for cash rewards.
The family’s assets have been frozen, while the 60-year-old
businessman was arrested because his company had been involved with suspicious
financial transactions totalling HK$170 million.
But according to Woo, the company only reported about HK$30
million in transactions this year to customs.
“We suspect the company used some bank accounts in money
laundering activities, and the accounts involved were not reported in its
business transactions,” he said.
Woo said the money exchange company’s licence had been
suspended following the owner’s arrest.
A law enforcement source said the biggest money-laundering
case was recorded in 2015, and involved HK$6.5 billion and the smuggling of
precious metals.
In 2016, a money changer was involved in a different case
over a total of HK$450 million.
Superintendent Grace Tang Wai-ngan, head of the financial
investigation group, said the family was thought to have laundered the cash
through layers of money transfers, making it difficult to investigate the
original owners and final recipients of the funds.
A law enforcement source said the money was usually moved
out of the bank accounts held by the family within one or two days.
During the operation, code named “Shadow Hunter”, officers
seized a large quantity of documents including bank statements along with
computers.
All six suspects were released on bail after being detained
on Thursday.
In Hong Kong, money laundering carries a maximum penalty of
14 years in prison, and a HK$5 million fine.
The Joint Financial Intelligence Unit, comprising police and
customs officers, handled 51,588 reports of suspicious financial activity in
2019, down 30 per cent compared with 73,889 in 2018.
More than 92,000 such transactions were reported in the
whole of 2017, and it was the most the unit had received in a single year since
it began publishing figures in 2012.
It also represented a 20 per cent rise from the 76,590
reports received in 2016, while there were 23,282 reports received in 2012.
Comments
Post a Comment