Businessmen with Hong Kong ties acquitted of money laundering charges at UK court
Hong Kong-based businessman, accused over scheme involving more than US$108 million invested by victims, slams British prosecutors
“I now look forward to returning to Hong Kong,” said James Sutherland, businessman based in the city, after a two-year judicial saga in England. Both him and businessman Jack Flader were acquitted of money laundering charges at Southwark Crown Court in London, on Thursday, following a nine-week trial.
This was the last in a series of three trials centred on boiler room fraud which involved more than $108 million invested by victims based in the UK. Nine people were convicted as a result of the earlier trials in 2013 and 2014. The third trial, which ended last week, was focused on those – Sutherland and Flader - alleged to have laundered the proceeds of the earlier fraud.
Sutherland, a British citizen, is a licensed financial advisor who has been based in Hong Kong since 1979. The accusation was related to Zetland Fiduciary Group, a Hong Kong-based fiduciary company, headed by Sutherland, which sets up and structures companies and trusts for clients who want to operate in the city and elsewhere in Asia.
“I have been forced to spend millions of pounds defending my good name, which has been built up over a lifetime in business. Time I should have spent running a successful fiduciary company operating from Hong Kong has instead been spent on preparing a defence and proving my innocence in a London court,” Sutherland noted in a statement issued following last week’s court decision.
He is now planning to return to his business full-time.
Sutherland maintained his innocence since he was first arrest in December 2013. He was then on police bail until his trial, which meant he had to surrender his British passport and needed permission to travel on business back and forth from Hong Kong.
