A Taiwanese man and his mainland girlfriend were hired to launder HK$20 million through 19 bank accounts in Hong Kong for an overseas lottery scam, the District Court heard yesterday.
The court was told that a bank manager in Singapore and a clerk in Japan had suffered total losses of HK$1.85 million.
Taiwanese decoration company owner Lin Meng-chang, 56, and his mainland girlfriend Mi Xiaoyan, 22, admitted being involved in money laundering between 2005 and last year. Lin pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of false travel documents and four money laundering charges, including one in which he was alleged to have conspired with Mi to launder more than HK$4 million through eight bank accounts. Mi also pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge.
Prosecutor Ned Lai Ka-yee said a victim in Singapore, Diana Koh Li Eng, had been conned into paying a total of HK$1.7 million after she was telephoned by a woman who told her to pay advance fees in Hong Kong for the collection of lottery prizes of US$50,000 and S$2 million.
Lu Bin, a Chinese woman living in Japan, was defrauded of HK$150,000 in May last year.
The court was told that Ms Lu met someone purporting to be a Kwok Chak-ping via MSN and was told that he worked for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. He persuaded her to invest in a new betting plan designed to combat illegal lottery gambling. She was also told that part of the money she invested would be used to aid victims of the earthquake in Sichuan province last May.