Hong Kong police arrest 8 people linked to HK$88 million cross-border money-laundering racket
- Criminals withdrew cash from stooge accounts and used it to buy virtual currencies at local over-the-counter outlets in a bid to conceal flow of money, police say
- Seven local men and a woman, aged 26 to 51, arrested in a series of raids across the city
Inspector Chung Cheuk-yin of the force’s commercial crime bureau said on Tuesday that the seven men and a woman detained included six core members of the syndicate, which recruited mainland Chinese to set up bank accounts in Hong Kong. The accounts were used to collect money generated from deception.
Chung said criminals from the racket withdrew cash from these accounts and used it to buy virtual currencies at local over-the-counter outlets in an effort to conceal the flow of illicit money.
“At the same time, they used bogus identities to set up accounts with overseas virtual currency trading platforms, which were used to collect the digital coins bought with the crime proceeds,” he said.
“Cryptocurrencies were then transferred to different e-wallets to launder the illegal funds and make it harder for police to investigate.”
He said investigations revealed the syndicate used 72 stooge accounts to launder more than HK$88 million generated from deception between September 2023 and March this year.
According to police, stooge account holders loan or sell their bank accounts to fraud syndicates to collect scammed money and launder crime proceeds in exchange for cash rewards.