The facts are pretty similar in each of the fraud charges in that the defendant claimed herself to be engaged in luxury goods trading, mainly luxury watches, and the victims would then invest in her scheme to buy luxury watches from the suppliers and that she will then undertake to sell it at a profit and each of the victims in the fraud charges would then be tempted by the return that they would get on the profit.
So it was a scheme which is, although not a breach of trust, the victims were introduced by people she knew and they, on some occasions in turn, would introduce others they knew to the defendant and this went on for a period of about two years and therefore resulting in these many charges. On some occasions, some of the victims may get a bit of their investment back and thus her scheme had continued.
It is, without a doubt, a very nefarious scheme and activity and the total losses suffered is astronomical. This is one of the few cases where the sums which resulted in this scheme, the total amount was in the region of over HK$81 million and the total actual loss is about over $76 million. And the outlay that the defendant actually had placed in position was very, very small indeed. So although it is not exactly a breach of trust situation, certainly she was working on some degree of trust from the victims in the case.
It is difficult to sentence in cases of this nature as Mr Davies had pointed out there is no guidelines for this kind of fraud. There is guideline for theft cases in breach of trust theft cases and the sentencing principle may be gleaned from the sentencing in the breach of trust theft cases, for example in the case of HKSAR v Cheung Mee Kiu [2008] 1 HKC 113, where the Court of Appeal said for breach of trust theft cases for amounts over 15 million, it would merit a sentence of 10 years or above. And it was said in the case of HKSAR v Chong Hung Shek [2019] 3 HKC 284 that the sentencing judge should take a global view of the overall culpability and then determine the appropriate sentence for each charge then decide whether the sentence should be consecutive or concurrent.
So as we can all see, the value of each charge, the amount of money of each charge which the victims suffered is a factor to be taken into account.
Now, the defendant was actually first arrested on 25 January 2017 and was given police bail on 27 January 2017 and so the defendant committed the offences, which is the subject matter of Charges 4 to 15, whilst she was on police bail. Now that is an aggravating factor which I have to take into account.
Now as far as the background of the defendant is concerned, she is aged 29 and I am told that she suffers from diabetes and the defendant has three previous convictions for shop theft which I do not take into account at all because this is really the first serious offence that she is involved in.
Mr Davies pleaded in mitigation drawing my attention to the fact of her early childhood, the difficult financial circumstances, how she eventually gained a degree in social work and that the letters testified to the fact that she is now a changed person, she has done much to rehabilitate herself whilst in custody, so which is to her credit and which means that she was not be wasting her time in prison. However, as far as sentencing mitigation is concerned, the only real mitigation I can see in this case is the fact that she had pleaded guilty and therefore saving the court’s time and saving witnesses having to come forward to give evidence.
So in considering the sentence, I am grateful to the prosecution, Mr Hui, for submitting to me the breakdown of amount involved and the actual loss suffered in each charge. So working from that charge, I will sentence in the following manner.
In Charge 1, the actual loss is something over $16 million, so I will take a starting point of 10 years’ imprisonment reducing it by one-third to 6 years and 8 months.
On the 2nd charge, the actual loss is in the region of 1.5 million and I will take a starting point of 2½ years and reducing it therefore to 1 year 8 months.
Now, on Charge 3, the actual loss is over $3.3 million and I will take a starting point of 4 years’ imprisonment reducing it to 2 years and 8 months.
Now, as for Charges 4 to 15, as I have mentioned above, these were committed after the defendant had been arrested and was on police bail and that is an aggravating factor which I will take into account for the sentences here below.
For Charge 4 to 6, the actual loss in total is about $945,480. For Charge 4, therefore, it is in the region of 500,000, I will impose a starting point sentence of 18 months plus 3 months for the breach of the bail condition by reoffending and so that will make it a total of 21 months and giving her the full one-third discount will reduce it to 1 year 2 months.
On Charge 5, the actual loss is somewhere below 500,000, so I will impose 18 months plus 3, it is also reduced to 1 year 2 months.
And Charge 6, the loss is somewhere about $100,000, so I will impose a starting point sentence of 12 months and then plus 3 months is 15 months reduced to 10 months.
In relation to Charge 7, that involves an actual loss of 189,000 and I will impose a starting point sentence of 12 months and then plus 3 months which will make it 15 months and reduced to 10 months.
And then for Charge 8 again, the amount is about just over $600,000. I will impose a sentence of 18 months plus 3 months equals 21 months and then reduce it by one-third, it will be 1 year 2 months.
And then Charge 9, the amount is just over 947,000 so I will impose a sentence of 2 years 3 months starting point plus 3 months equals 2½ years, reducing it by one-third to 1 year and 8 months.
Now in relation to Charges 10 and 11, the actual loss is somewhere in the region of about $9.4 million. In relation to Charge 10, I will impose a starting point sentence of 7 years plus 3 months and that will give me, after one-third discount, 4 years and 10 months.
And then Charge 11, the amount actual loss is about 200,000 so I will impose a sentence of 12 months plus the 3 months equals to 15 months and after one-third discount will be 10 months.
Charge 12, the loss is slightly more than $240,000, so that will be 12 months plus 3 months equals 15 months reduced to 10 months.
Charge 13, the actual loss is about just over 100,000, again, I will impose a similar sentence of 12 plus 3 equals 15 months and reduced to 10 months.
Charges 14 and 15, the actual loss is about $649,942 and as far as Charge 14, that is for the total actual losses suffered in Charges 14 and 15. So for Charge 14, I will impose a sentence of, again, 12 months starting point plus 3 months equals 15 months and then reduce by one-third to 10 months.
For Charge 15, I will impose a sentence of 15 months plus 3 equal 18 months reduced to 12 months.
And then as far as Charge 16 is concerned, that involves a huge sum of money as compared to the other charges. It is RMB30,900,000 and US$1 million, which gives us a total of actual loss of about $41.79 million. So I would impose a starting point sentence of 12 years and reducing it to 8 years.
And then Charge 17 is the money laundering charge. The total amount, as it is worked out, the total deposit was in the region of about HK$149,961,835 and the net deposit is in the region of $126,002,387. So we are talking about an extreme amount of money and so I will impose a sentence of 6 years because I think part of that charge would cover the money which had been charged in the charges above so I will make a starting point of 6 years and reduce to 4 years because of her plea.
Now, of course I have to consider the totality principle and I would therefore make the sentences in Charges 1, 2 and 3 concurrent, giving a total of 6 years and 8 months. And 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the sentences will be concurrent, giving a total of 1 year and 8 months. Charges 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 will be concurrent, giving a total of 4 years and 10 months.
Charge 16 will be 8 years and so in considering totality this is what I will do. The 6 years 8 months will be followed by the 1 year 8 months in relation to Charges 4 to 9. Now, 1 year of that will be consecutive to the 6 years and 8 months.
As for Charges 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, the 4 years and 10 months, 2 years and 4 months will be consecutive to the above sentences and Charge 16, the 8 years, 2 years will be consecutive to the above sentences, making a total of 12 years’ imprisonment.
So the defendant will go to prison for 12 years.