HKSAR v. Wong Sze Chun
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DCCC253/2010 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION CRIMINAL CASE NO. 253 OF 2010 ----------------------
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----------------------------- Reasons for Sentence ----------------------------- 1.Wong Sze-chun, you have been convicted after trial of dealing with $4,797,890, which was deposited into your savings account with the Hang Seng Bank over a period of just over eight years between 15 August 2000 and 23 October 2008, knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe that it wholly or in part represented the proceeds of an indictable offence. 2.It is admitted that you opened the account on 15 August 2000, giving your occupation as a worker. The total amount of $4,797,890 was deposited into the account over the following eight years by way of 5,322 deposits. 3.Because of your plea of not guilty, there is no evidence as to what offence you believe that this money was derived from. The pattern of activity within the account shows that it was being used as a vehicle for the receipt of multiple cash deposits which were then withdrawn in cash through an ATM machine very shortly afterwards. 4.Although a number of aspects of your explanations for this bank account have shifted, what has been consistent is your explanation that this account was being operated not by you but by someone you knew as “Dai Ngan Jai”, who had asked you to open the account. For the purpose of sentence, I am prepared to accept that you were allowing a third party to operate your account, at the very least having reasonable grounds to believe that it would be used for the purpose of receiving the proceeds of an indictable offence. That you may not have known precisely what indictable offence is not a matter you can urge in mitigation. I do, however, take into account that there is no evidence that there is any international dimension to this offence. 5.As I have said, I am prepared to accept for the purpose of sentence that your role was simply to open this account and deliver the means of operating it to a third party. It was, however, a situation you allowed to continue for over eight years. What makes money laundering so serious is that it directly assists those who commit criminal offences in their criminal activities. 6.I bear in mind that although you have been before the courts a number of times before and been sentenced to periods of detention, none of those offences is similar to this one. 7.I am satisfied that the appropriate starting point for this offence is 30 months’ imprisonment. 8.You have not pleaded guilty or shown any remorse for what you have done and I find there is no basis to give you any discount from that starting point. The sentence therefore is one of 30 months’ imprisonment.
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