Big sums laundered for 'tiny profits'

While sentencing a 70-year-old man yesterday for laundering HK$2.2 billion over three months, a High Court judge said the man had engaged in a serious crime dealing with huge amounts of money in exchange for "tiny profits" of HK$3,500 a month.

The defendant, Wong Lan-chun, and his cousin Chan Tsz-yin, 53, received prison sentences of three years and nine months, and five years and four months, respectively, for three counts of knowingly dealing in ill-gotten gains. The pair had earlier pleaded guilty.

Court of First Instance judge Mr Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai, who delivered the sentences, said that while Chan masterminded the case, Wong "committed the offences for tiny profits".

Wong received more leniency than the normal one-third sentence reduction for a guilty plea, as he had agreed to testify as a witness against Chan. But that wasn't necessary.

The court heard earlier that Chan, a remittance agent, had been unable to open his own bank accounts and asked Wong to start a company and open the accounts.

Wong registered a garment-trading company, Shun Fat, and opened three accounts with Bank of China (Hong Kong), through which the money was laundered from January 1 to March 3, 2010.

Chan admitted to police under caution that a "boss" on the mainland would pay the cousins HK$7,000 per month for operating the remittance business. Chan claimed to have no knowledge of the funds' depositors and sources of money, saying all transactions were ordered by the boss.