Two former shareholders of a money-changing company are being retried over their alleged involvement in a five-year money-laundering operation that processed a 'vast sum of money' averaging $92 million a day.
Chan Chung-ming, 43, director of Guardecade, and Wong Sung-tak, 31, an employee of the Tsim Sha Tsui company, are accused of conspiracy to deal with money knowing or believing it to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence. Both held shares in the money-changer.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict for the two men when the case was first heard late last year.
Prosecutor Peter Callaghan told the Court of First Instance yesterday the foreign currencies smuggled from the mainland to Guardecade between 1997 and 2001 amounted to between $10 billion and just under $30 billion a year. He said the case was connected to tax evasion on the mainland.
He said Hong Kong, with no financial restrictions on foreign exchange, was an ideal place for money smuggling. 'But freedom needs protection. We don't want our city to become a haven for criminals,' Mr Callaghan said in his opening address to the nine-member jury.
The money, mainly in US dollars, Italian lira, deutschmarks and yen, was converted by Guardecade into Hong Kong dollars, the prosecutor said. The money was then distributed to the beneficiaries by using the internal transfer account of the then Po Sang Bank.