Two Hongkongers were arrested yesterday in part of a police crackdown on a money laundering gang, which is suspected to be connected to a regional phone scam ring.
The arrests made yesterday involved a 37-year-old woman who operated a bureau de change in Central and her 43-year-old male employee. They had allegedly laundered HKD1.8 billion through the bureau de change and seven local bank accounts opened in the name of a shell company within two months.
Both the woman and man were arrested around the same time yesterday afternoon, on Hong Kong Island and Sau Mau Ping, respectively.
Chief Inspector Lam Cheuk-ho of the Kowloon East’s regional crime unit said, “We are still chasing the source of the money”.
Lam was quoted as saying that the man had been hired as a warehouse worker by his superior, and asked to open a shell company and bank accounts under his own name. The chief inspector says he believes the man did not know about the syndicate or money laundering.
Of the HKD1.8 billion laundered, SCMP reports that the police believe about HKD6.5 million came from five different cross-strait phone scam cases.
Lam added that police had recovered HKD19 million, HKD2.65 million of which had come from two phone scams.
“All scams involved callers posing as mainland officials to con victims. We will contact the victims as soon as possible”, Lam said, but apparently most of the money had already been cashed abroad via underground banks not long after the cons took place.
Police from Hong Kong, mainland and Taiwanese joined forces last month to bust two syndicates running phone scams, both of which were based abroad. A total of 431 mainland and Taiwanese people were arrested.
Photo (for illustration): Wikipedia
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