HKSAR v. Pamonag Leahlyn Singanon

DCCC 837/2024 & DCCC 672/2025

(Consolidated)

[2026] HKDC 873

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 837 OF 2024 and 672 OF 2025

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REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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1.D pleaded guilty to two charges of dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence (“money laundering”), contrary to section 25(1)  and (3)  of the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, Cap.455 (“OSCO”).

Facts

2.D is a Filipina and was at all material times working as a domestic helper in Hong Kong.

3.On 26 March 2023, an account with Standard Chartered Bank (“the SCB Account”)  and an account with MOX Bank (“the MOX Account”)  were opened online in the name of D.  The opening mandate of the SCB Account says the purpose of this account was for savings.  The opening mandate of the MOX Account says D was employed in “Professional Video Gaming and Nightlife” with an average monthly income of HK$25,000.

4.Lured by the scammer, a victim of an online romance fraud (“V1”)  transferred a total of HK$62,000 on two occasions to the SCB Account.

5.Lured by the scammer, a victim of an online job recruitment fraud (“V2”)  remitted HK$102,000 to the MOX Account via FPS.

6.Fund flow analyses of the two accounts show that:

(i)  between 27 March 2023 and 30 April 2023, the SCB Account had 57 deposits totalling HK$3,075,807.90 and 85 withdrawals totalling HK$3,075,767.88. There were no further transactions after 11 April 2023;

(ii)  between 27 March 2023 and 30 March 2023, the MOX Account had 25 deposits totalling HK$288,455.30 and 18 withdrawals totalling HK$ 288,451.55;

(iii)  mirror patterns appear in these two accounts’ transactions, indicating that they were used as temporary repositories of funds;

(iv)  funds deposited into these two accounts were transfers made by multiple counterparties including V1 and V2.

7.D was arrested on 11 February 2024.  In a video-recorded interview, she admitted under caution and with the assistance of an interpreter that she had been working as a domestic helper in Hong Kong for 4 years with a monthly salary of $4,630.  On 26 March 2023, upon the invitation of a fellow Filipina, she met in Tseung Kwan O a Chinese man who, according to that Filipina, was a staff member of MOX Bank.  She was told that there was a promotion and she could get a reward of $300 for opening an account.  She agreed to do so.  The man used a mobile phone to scan her HKID card and took pictures of her, allegedly for registration of an account under her name on an app called “MOX”. She knew that MOX was a platform for doing transactions like Alipay.  When shown the opening mandate of the SCB Account, she confirmed that the name and HKID were hers, but the phone number and the email address were not.  The time of the opening of this account was about the time when she met the Chinese man. She said she did not operate this account, and she did not know if there was a bank card. She had no means of contacting the said Filipina and the Chinese man.

8.D owned no property and her financial means were incommensurate with the amounts of money passing through her two accounts.

9.She admitted the facts alleging that she knew that her personal information, including her name and HKID, were used to open the said accounts, and that she, together with person(s)  unknown, dealt with the properties set out in the two charges knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe that those properties in whole or in part directly or indirectly represented proceeds of an indictable offence.

Defendant’s Background

10.D is a 38-year-old Filipino national.  She is married with two children in the Philippines, where she was educated and obtained a diploma for primary school teaching.  Prior to her arrest, she was working as a domestic helper for a family in Hong Kong, with a monthly salary of $4,630.

11.She has a clear record.

Mitigation

12.Defence counsel Mr. Franco Kuan told the court that on 23 March 2023, D was invited and accompanied by a Filipino female to Tseung Kwan O Park.  This female told her that she could earn $300 promotion reward if she provided her HKID card for opening bank accounts.  D had no idea how many accounts were to be opened.  The Chinese man she met there was allegedly a staff member of MOX Bank.  D provided this man with her HKID card and allowed him to scan her ID card and take pictures of her.  Eventually, the man created the SCB Account and the MOX Account on his phone for D. Subsequently, D got $300 from the Filipino female.

13.D had no control of the two accounts and never personally used them.  However, she fully accepts that when she provided the man with her HKID card and allowed him to take photos of her, she had reasonable grounds to believe that her information would be used to open bank accounts which might be used by other people to deal with proceeds of crime.

14.She is extremely remorseful for what she did.  Her early pleas of guilty not only reflect her remorse but also save the court’s and the prosecution’s time.  A one-third sentencing discount will be fully justified.

15.She had been working diligently and honestly for her Hong Kong employer who, in her letter of mitigation, said D had demonstrated exceptional loyalty, honesty and strong work ethics. She is a caring mother and a filial daughter.  She will go back home after serving her sentence to care for her family.

16.Counsel referred to HKSAR v Boma [2012] 2 HKLRD 33 and HKSAR v Hsu Yu Yi [2010] 5 HKLRD 545 for some of the significant considerations in sentencing for this type of offence.  He pointed out that while there are no sentencing tariffs for money laundering cases, the Court of Appeal in Secretary for Justice v Wan Kwok Keung (雲國強) [2012] 1 HKLRD 201 observed that the starting points for previous money laundering cases indicated that:

(i)  the starting point is 3 years or so where the proceeds involved is between HK$1 million and HK$2 million;

(ii)  the starting point is 4 years or so where the proceeds involved is between HK$3 million and HK$6 million; and

(iii)  the starting point could be over 5 years where the proceeds involved is above HK$10 million.

17.Mr Kuan pointed out that the total amount of proceeds involved in our case is $3,364,263.20, the offences lasted for a short time, no sophisticated planning was involved, and D’s role was minimal.

18.Referring to the court’s reasoning in HKSAR v Fuentes Ma Rochel Catayoc [2016] HKDC 132 at [7], Mr Kuan submitted that D simply worked as a domestic helper who had allowed others to use and take control of her accounts. She was neither the mastermind nor was she involved in the predicate offence of fraud.  Whilst the sentence on her must carry a deterrent effect, the court must also bear in mind the actual role she played.

19.For the above reasons, Mr Kuan urged the court to adopt a starting point lower than 4 years.

20.As for the OSCO enhancement of sentence, counsel noted that Chief Inspector LI’s report’s statistics show that the percentage of deception and money laundering cases has reached a plateau in 2024 and 2025 and that the percentage figure remains more or less the same in the first quarter of 2026. Counsel urged the court to take a relatively lower percentage of enhancement.

Sentencing considerations

21.Money laundering is a serious offence which attracts a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.

22.Yeung JA in HKSAR v Kamran CACC 400/2004 said that “money laundering is a very serious offence as it is an attempt to legitimise proceeds from criminal activities.  Serious offences are very often motivated by financial gains and those who assist criminals in laundering money, indirectly encourage them in their criminal activities”, that “successful deterrents against money laundering could be effective measures against crime”, and that “it is not feasible to lay down guidelines for sentence of money laundering offence, as there is a wide range of culpability.”

23.According to Hsu Yu Yi (許有益), the factors to be considered in sentencing for this offence are: a)  the amount of money involved is a major consideration; b)  a defendant’s level of participation; c)  the sentence imposed on the predicate offence if it can be known; d)  if the case has an international element; and e)  the length of time the offence lasted.

24.The Court of Appeal in Boma emphasized the importance of deterrence for this kind of offence, pointed out that the amount of money laundered was a significant feature, and set out a non-exhaustive list of other significant features, which includes the nature of the predicate offence, the state of the offender’s knowledge, whether an international element was involved, the sophistication of the offence, whether organised criminal syndicate was involved, the number of transactions and length of the offence, whether the offender continued to launder funds after knowing that they were proceeds of a serious crime, and the offender’s role.

25.There are of course the observations made by the Court of Appeal in Wan Kwok Keung (雲國強)  regarding the brackets of sentence for different ranges of money laundered, as referred to by Mr Kuan in his submission.  The Court in HKSAR v Liao Liting (廖麗婷)  CACC 334/2015 remarked that although these observations are not sentencing guidelines, they provide valuable reference[1].  The Court in Secretary for Justice v Tse Chi Kin （謝志建）CAAR 4/2024 pointed out that in dealing with money laundering sentencing, the judge should consider on the one hand the maximum sentence for this type of offence and the need for deterrent sentence, and on the other hand the facts of the case and his overall impression of the case; the judge should not merely rely on the appropriate sentencing bracket for the amount of money laundered.[2]

26.In our case, Charge 1 involves laundering HK$3,075,807.90 in 36 days, Charge 2 involves laundering HK$288,455.30 in 4 days.

27.I accept that D was just a simple and unsophisticated domestic helper who helped others to open bank accounts and allowed others to take control of those accounts.  She was not the mastermind, and she took no part in the preceding frauds.  Nevertheless, when she provided her HKID card to the man and allowed him to take pictures of her, she had reasonable grounds to believe that information pertaining to her identity would be used to open bank accounts in her name that might be used by other people to deal with proceeds of crime.

28.Her role can be said to fall towards the bottom end of the “gradations of culpability” mentioned in Boma, namely, someone “who is paid a small sum to open an account and hand over its operation to another with no more participation and no more knowledge than that it is to be used for some sort of crime…”[3]

29.Given the circumstances of this case, and bearing in mind that these are very serious offences which call for deterrent sentences, I consider 36 months’ imprisonment to be an appropriate starting point for Charge 1.  Charge 2 involves a much smaller amount of about $288,000; a starting point of 18 months’ imprisonment for this charge would be about right.

30.Awarding D a one-third discount for her guilty pleas will result in a sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment in respect of Charge 1 and a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment in respect of Charge 2.

31.A statement dated 21 April 2026 made by Chief Inspector LI Yiu-nam (the statement)  of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment of the Financial and Intelligence Bureau was tendered by the prosecution in support of its application under section 27(2)  of OSCO to enhance the sentence on the grounds of prevalence and the nature and extent of harm caused to the community.

32.From the role she played, D falls under the classification of an “ML[4] stooge”, which is defined in the statement as someone who “had assisted in the ML activities but has minimal or no involvement in the predicate offence or has little or no knowledge on the predicate offence.” [5]

33.Paragraph 19 of the statement says: “As can be seen from Table A, the use of stooge remains prominent.  There is a rising trend in the use of stooge from 31.38% recorded in the year 2020 to 75.10% recorded in the year 2024.  The police have spent a lot of resources on crime prevention, advertising and warning people not to ‘sell’ or ‘lend’ their bank accounts to others and could possibly be lured into taking the risks of commission of ML offence.  It seems that the trend remains prevalent albeit all the publicity work.” 

34.I should add that the comparable figure for Jan-Mar 2026 is 71.36%, and that the total amount of reported losses and/or proceeds laundered in money laundering cases for the same quarter-year is $871.08 million.

35.The statement points out that the increasing use of ML stooges has hampered the anti-money laundering regime in Hong Kong in that it interfered with the normal operation of the banking system and harmed Hong Kong’s reputation as an international financial centre, encouraged more crimes to be committed, allowed culprits to make use of their ill-gotten gains to engage in a wider range of illegal activities, increased the investigation efforts and resources of law enforcement agencies, and rendered people with low income or little realisation of the consequences of selling their bank accounts more likely to be lured into surrendering their accounts for monetary rewards.

36.I accept entirely all the matters set out in the statement, and find the sentence enhancement application proved beyond reasonable doubt.

37.As these offences are still very prevalent and causing tremendous harm to the community, I would enhance the sentence on each charge by 25%, thereby raising the sentence in respect of Charge 1 to 30 months’ imprisonment, and that in respect of Charge 2 to 15 months’ imprisonment.

38.In view of D’s overall culpability, I consider it right that both sentences are to be served concurrently, giving rise to a total sentence of 30 months’ imprisonment.