Hong Kong police arrest 8 people linked to HK$88 million cross-border money-laundering racket
- Criminals withdrew cash from stooge accounts and used it to buy virtual currencies at local over-the-counter outlets in a bid to conceal flow of money, police say
- Seven local men and a woman, aged 26 to 51, arrested in a series of raids across the city
Inspector Chung Cheuk-yin of the force’s commercial crime bureau said on Tuesday that the seven men and a woman detained included six core members of the syndicate, which recruited mainland Chinese to set up bank accounts in Hong Kong. The accounts were used to collect money generated from deception.
Chung said criminals from the racket withdrew cash from these accounts and used it to buy virtual currencies at local over-the-counter outlets in an effort to conceal the flow of illicit money.
“At the same time, they used bogus identities to set up accounts with overseas virtual currency trading platforms, which were used to collect the digital coins bought with the crime proceeds,” he said.
“Cryptocurrencies were then transferred to different e-wallets to launder the illegal funds and make it harder for police to investigate.”
He said investigations revealed the syndicate used 72 stooge accounts to launder more than HK$88 million generated from deception between September 2023 and March this year.
According to police, stooge account holders loan or sell their bank accounts to fraud syndicates to collect scammed money and launder crime proceeds in exchange for cash rewards.
During the operation, code-named “Justicesword”, commercial crime bureau officers arrested the eight suspects in a series of raids across the city on Monday.
Chung said the suspects included a lifeguard, a computer programmer, a photographer and a salesman.
The eight locals, aged from 26 to 51, were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to launder crime proceeds – an offence punishable by up to 14 years in jail and a HK$5 million fine.
Police seized bank cards, relevant documents and mobile phones during the operation.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the suspects were still being held for questioning.
Police said the investigation into the final destination of the illicit funds was continuing and further arrests were possible.
The city recorded a 42.6 per cent increase in all types of deception to 39,824 reports last year from 27,923 in 2022.
The amount lost went up by 89 per cent to HK$9.1 billion in 2023 from HK$4.8 billion recorded the year before.
