A legal precedent heralded as a blow against international money laundering and drug trafficking was challenged in the Court of Appeal yesterday.
In October 1998, Lin Xin-nian, 40, a Canadian resident with a Chinese passport, was stopped at Chek Lap Kok and found to have C$380,060 (HK$1.9 million) stuffed in his suitcase and pockets.
Although Mr Lin was not charged with any crime, the police confiscated the money under the Drug Trafficking (Recovery of Proceeds) Ordinance, a law introduced in 1995 to make it easier to seize the proceeds of drug trafficking.
Last June, in the Court of First Instance, Deputy Judge Michael McMahon ruled that the police were entitled to seize the money, and Mr Lin is now challenging that ruling.
Deputy Judge McMahon had heard evidence, gathered in a joint operation with Canadian police, of Mr Lin's links to members of a heroin syndicate in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto.
Mr Lin had claimed C$100,000 of the cash was his and the rest was a loan from his sister. He said he was going to give the money to his father on the mainland.
