Hong Kong customs seized HK$4.6 billion in dirty money in 2020, as launderers were forced to adapt to Covid-19
- The haul was the most recovered since 2016, when local officials busted a HK$5.9 billion laundering case
- Last year also saw 38 suspects arrested on suspicion of washing criminal proceeds, twice as many as 2019
Hong Kong customs officials seized HK$4.6 billion (US$593.3 million) in dirty money in 2020 – a four-year high – as transnational rackets turned to novel methods for smuggling cash into the city and handling criminal proceeds amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Overall, the Customs and Excise Department last year arrested 38 people in connection with nine cases, twice as many as the 19 suspects netted for allegedly laundering HK$3.6 billion in 2019. Last year’s HK$4.6 billion haul was the biggest since 2016, when customs officials cracked down on a HK$5.9 billion money-laundering case in conjunction with their mainland counterparts.
The courts last year also ordered the freezing of some HK$35 million in suspected criminal proceeds – nearly six times the HK$5.6 million seized in 2019.
In an interview with the Post on Wednesday, Superintendent Grace Tang Wai-ngan, head of the department’s financial investigation group, said the pandemic had altered money-laundering activities.
Apart from traditional laundering tricks, such as conspiring with an offshore company to funnel ill-gotten gains out of Hong Kong shell company bank accounts, some culprits last year turned to licensed money changers to launder large sums of cash through layers of transfers, Tang said.