Mainlander jailed for 10 years for laundering HK$13 billion in Hong Kong
Judge says maximum penalties should be reviewed after mainlander launders record amount in Hong Kong in just eight months
A young mainlander was yesterday jailed for 10-1/2 years for laundering a record HK$13.1 billion over just eight months.
Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping said Luo Juncheng's crime was the most serious of its kind to have come before the courts and she could not find a case involving anywhere near such a large amount.
She said there was now an urgent need to review the maximum penalties for the offence, which was becoming more prevalent.
Luo, 22, from Guangdong, was convicted on Tuesday by a Court of First Instance jury. He had pleaded not guilty to one count of dealing with property known or reasonably believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence.
An earlier hearing was told that before his arrest, Luo had rung police to ask why his bank account in Hong Kong had been frozen. He was arrested on January 28 while entering the city at Lok Ma Chau.
Toh agreed with defence counsel Joseph Tse Wah-yuen SC, who said in mitigation yesterday that Luo, who had set up a corporate account with Chiyu Banking Corp, a subsidiary of Bank of China's Hong Kong unit, was not the mastermind.
Luo, a middle school dropout, said he had been acting on behalf of a family friend, Uncle Pang. He said he was one of four brothers and worked as a delivery man for factories in Shenzhen until he quit to care for his ailing mother. His mother had introduced him to Uncle Pang, who had helped pay for his father's medical bills before he died in 2002. Uncle Pang approached Luo to go to Hong Kong to set up a company and accounts after Luo's mother died in 2010, Luo testified.