HKSAR v. Li Guoyin

DCCC 1543/2025

[2026] HKDC 1033

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO 1543 OF 2025

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REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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1.The defendant has pleaded guilty to a single charge of dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence, contrary to Section 25(1)  and (3)  of Cap 455. The operative dates of the offence are between 3 November 2023 and 14 November 2023, involve a total of some $3,425,000 in relation to a bank account held by a company that the defendant was in charge of with Hongkong Bank. 

2.The details of the facts and the relevant facts are that the defendant was the sole signatory of a bank account with HSBC which was held solely by Shuorei Trade Limited (‘Company’).  The account been opened on 1 September 2023.  The company was in fact incorporated in Hong Kong on 24 August 2023 and the defendant is sole member and director of that company.  The operation of this case came to light as a result of some predicate offences that arose in November 2023, a total of 10 local victims falling prey to investment scams after being contacted by a fraudster online and by WhatsApp.  They were lured into making online investments by remitting funds to designated bank accounts.  The 10 local victims invested a total of $6.8 million of which $1.64 million was deposited into the account controlled by the defendant.  The matters were reported to police.  The account was investigated.

3.It was found that when the defendant opened the account on 1 September 2023, he said the source of his money was his savings.  He is the sole member and director of the company.  The account was active between 3 November 2023 and 14 November 2023, around about 12 days in total.  There were some 30 deposits totalling $3.425 million and 75 withdrawals representing $3,428,450.  The fund flows of the account showed mirrored transactions as well.

4.The defendant was arrested on 7 May 2025. He made a cautioned statement, admitted he was educated to secondary level, he was unemployed, and that he had opened the account with HSBC.  The facts admitted by the defendant clearly show the offence with which the defendant is charged and I convicted him accordingly.

5.The defendant’s antecedent statement shows him to be 45 years of age, born in China, he is a holder of a two-way entry permit and is no doubt a resident of the People’s Republic of China.  He had worked as a manager at a hardware engineering company.

6.In terms of the mitigation advanced for the defendant, it is said he is a resident of the People’s Republic of China, resided in the Bao’an District of Shenzhen, received secondary education in the People’s Republic of China, came to Hong Kong on 7 May 2007.  He has worked as a casual labourer in the People’s Republic of China.

7.The defendant has been remanded in custody and I am told that he is suffering from various medical problems as a result of that, namely shoulder back pain and bouts of phlegm.  Also in mitigation, it is said that the court should take into account that although the defendant does not seek to minimise the seriousness of the offence, the court should take account of the defendant’s limited role, that he was not the mastermind or the person directly deceiving the victims, the relatively short offending period and the defendant’s plea.  As a result of the defendant’s plea of guilty, he will of course be entitled to a one-third discount from sentence. 

8.Another factor in sentencing today is the presence of an application for enhancement of the sentence by the authorities and a statement has been furnished to the court pursuant to Section 27(2)  of Cap 455 in support of that application.  The statement by Chief Inspector Li sets out statistical evidence to support the prevalence of the use of stooge accounts in the commission of the specified offence, namely the offence contrary to Section 25 at Cap. 455, and also the nature and extent of any harm, direct or indirect, caused to the community by recent occurrences of the specified offence.

9.The application for enhancement is not challenged and the statistics set out the basis on which the court is able to enhance this sentence, so the court will take into account the fact that an enhancement of sentence must be made and also the percentage by which that enhancement should occur.  In Mr Li’s submission, he notes the statistical evidence shows a, I think I will describe it as a plateauing or diminishment of the reported number of deception cases or stooge cases and the total amounts of monies involved.  However, although that argument can be supported on the statistics put before the court, it is still the case that the use of these stooge accounts, such as the account opened by the defendant, is prevalent in the commission of the Section 25 offence and also harm direct and indirectly is caused to the community by the recent occurrence of this specified offence.

10.Turning to the approach to sentence, I am referred to a number of cases which are common to the sentencing under this section.  I refer firstly to HKSAR v Liao Liting at CACC334/2015, a Court of Appeal case which sets out the sentencing principles to be considered in money laundering cases.  There of course is the case of HKSAR v Boma which sets out a number of factors that should be considered by the court in considering the starting point for sentence of Section 25 offences.  Furthermore, there is HKSAR v Hsu Yu Yi [2010] 5 HKLRD 536, which again sets out the factors that the court should take into account. Finally, I am referred to the case of Secretary for Justice v Wan Kwok Keung [2012] 1 HKLRD 197 which sets out some benchmark sentences in respect of these offences.

11.Clearly, there is no guideline sentence to be imposed for these offences because the nature of the offences varies widely.  However, the court should look at factors such as the nature of the predicate offence; the state of the offender’s knowledge of the predicate offence; whether an international dimension exists in the offence; the sophistication of the offence and the degree of planning involved; whether the offence is committed by a criminal syndicate; whether there are a number of transactions and the length of time over which the offence was committed and the role of the offender and the acts performed by him.

12.Here, the defendant is one of the important fact role in that he sets up the account, without which the offence could not be committed, the offence committed over some 12 days involving some $3.4 million.

13.Based on the case of Secretary for Justice v Wan Kwok Keung the following was said: “Where the amount of money laundered involved is between 1 million and 2 million, the sentencing benchmark is about 3 years, whereas between 3 and 6 million, the sentencing benchmark is about 4 years”.  So based purely on the amount of money laundered, the starting point for sentence should be in the region of 4 years’ imprisonment.

14.I will take that as a starting point for sentence here, that is 48 months’ imprisonment.  Defendant’s plea of guilty takes that down to 32 months’ imprisonment. 

15.I then must consider the enhancement.  I noted in submissions that enhancements of late have been in the region of between 20 to 25 per cent of that figure.  I shall take an enhancement of 7 months’ imprisonment, which represent just over 20 per cent of the figure after deduction for plea of guilty, which leads to a final sentence of 39 months’ imprisonment for the defendant on this offence.