Judge bars tycoon from leaving on trip to UK
Tycoon Carson Yeung Ka-sing has been barred from leaving Hong Kong today to fly to the UK to attend to his financially troubled English League Championship soccer club Birmingham City.
Mr Justice Peter Line, in the Court of First Instance, yesterday granted a prosecution call to overturn a District Court decision to allow Yeung, 51, who faces five counts of money laundering involving HK$720 million, to travel to London.
The media is prohibited by law from reporting details of the bail review.
The latest twist came after Yeung (pictured) persuaded the District Court on August 30 to allow him to fly to Britain, after his original application was rejected by a magistrate on August 11. He was to be allowed to stay in the UK between today and Monday on condition that his cash bail be doubled to HK$8 million and that he provide his itinerary and address in Britain.
Yeung was released on his original bail of HK$4 million cash with a HK$3 million surety.
He has to report to The Peak police station between 6 and 9pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
As he was not in court yesterday, the judge ordered the businessman to come to the court to sign the revised bail document.
Yeung arrived around noon.
Yeung was arrested in June by officers from the narcotics bureau's financial investigations unit at his home on The Peak.
The court earlier heard that it was suspected that four Wing Lung Bank accounts and one HSBC account had been used to launder more than HK$721 million between January 2001 and December 2007.
The court was also told that two other accounts, under his father's name, had deposits of HK$88.4 million, but only HK$6,880 was reported as taxable income. The money was later transferred under instruction from Yeung.
Late last month, Birmingham City's owner, Birmingham International Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company, received a lone of up to HK$80 million from its new deputy chairman, Yang Yuezhou, to repay debts and as general capital.
