HKSAR v. Lee Poh Kok

DCCC649/2011

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 649 OF 2011

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to two charges before this court. The 1st charge is one of conspiracy to defraud, contrary to common law and punishable under section 159C(6) of the Crimes Ordinance. That conspiracy charge was committed between yourself and another person known as Ah Fai between 26 February and 9 April 2011. The agreement was to defraud companies or persons by dishonestly and falsely representing that you were authorised to use five credit cards from various banks so as to obtain the goods from those companies when such credit cards were forged.

2.The 2nd charge relates to possession of those five forged credit cards, contrary to section 75(1) of the Crimes Ordinance.

3.At about 4.30 pm on 9 April 2011, you went into a cosmetics shop in Wong Tai Sin and asked one of the staff salesmen to check some of its stock in relation to some cosmetic products.  When the sales staff returned with the information you had required, you suddenly rushed out of the shop.  Feeling suspicious, the sales staff reported this matter to two police officers who happened to be patrolling nearby.  You were then intercepted by the police officers outside the shop.  Upon search, one of the forged credit cards was found in your pocket whilst the four others were found inside your wallet.

4.Under caution, you admitted that those said five credit cards found were forged.  You claimed that you got them from a loan shark creditor in Malaysia, and you were arranged by this loan shark called Ah Fai to come to Hong Kong with these five false credit cards.  You were told to use them to buy goods and then someone would contact you later to pick up those goods in Hong Kong.

5.You came from Malaysia.  You entered Hong Kong on 25 February 2011.  Since then, you had used these cards on numerous occasions.  You estimated that you had spent approximately $150,000 with these forged credit cards.  In return, you had received about 10 per cent of that as your reward.

6.Defendant, you are 29 years of age and of clear record.  You were born in Malaysia. You have come to Hong Kong from Malaysia as a visitor.  Mr Patrick Chow, your solicitor, has made very full and thorough mitigation on your behalf, and I have taken into account all that he has had to say when considering the appropriate sentence.  He has informed me that you are educated up to Primary 6 level but quit halfway through.  You are single and living with your parents.  Your father had a stroke some two years ago and has since been left paralysed. 

7.Whilst working in Malaysia, you were a lorry attendant, transportation worker and earned approximately three to three and a half thousand Hong Kong dollars a month.

8.You had been living a decent life and kept out of trouble but your one vice was that you liked gambling.  As a result, you racked up huge gambling debts and owed a loan shark, whom you mentioned called Ah Fai, some 150,000 Malaysian dollars which works out to approximately HK$350,000.  

9.Due to your very limited income, you were unable to repay this huge debt.  The smaller amounts you were able to pay, Ah Fai was not happy with.  As a result, he asked you to participate in these forged credit card offences.  Knowing the seriousness of these offences, you refused. However, Ah Fai threatened that if you refused, he would harm your family, especially your paralysed father and thus you agreed.  You therefore came to Hong Kong at the expense of Ah Fai, and he was the one who arranged all the forged credit cards for you. 

10.Whilst here, you would make the purchases and thereafter you would leave the various purchased goods on a bench sometime in the middle of the night or early in the morning and some of Ah Fai’s men would go and collect it.  Cash of approximately 10 per cent commission of the purchase price would be left under the bench for you.  Despite Ah Fai promising to pay for your living expenses, I am informed by Mr Chow, your solicitor, that you yourself had to pay for your living expenses out of your 10 per cent commission earned. 

11.Your solicitor, Mr Chow, has referred me to the cases in respect of forged credit cards which the court must take into account when sentencing offenders, and those cases are R v Chan Sui To Crim App No. 115 of 1996 and HKSAR v Tu I Lang CACC464 of 2006.

12.Defendant, the strongest mitigation put forward is of course your plea of guilty and the fact that you admitted to the officers that you had come to Hong Kong under the arrangement and agreement of Ah Fai to commit these offences.  Ah Fai is someone in Malaysia, and you came from Malaysia.  You had come from Malaysia to Hong Kong deliberately to commit these offences.  There is therefore a clear international dimension.

13.The number of credit cards involved was five, not a small amount.  Clearly, on your own admission, with those five credit cards, you had purchased goods to an amount of some $150,000.  The credit cards, though forged, all had your name on them.  You, however, as I see it, did not play a major role.  You were the purchaser of the goods and a courier of the goods.

14.Taking all these matters into account and the factors involved, I consider that had I convicted you after trial for these offences, I would have taken a starting point of 4 years’ imprisonment. 

15.Defendant although there are two charges against you, the two charges are of the same matter and committed at the same time.  In those circumstances, I would order that the sentences in both charges be run concurrent to each other. Defendant, giving you full credit for your plea of guilty, I reduce the term of 4 years to one of 2 years 8 months’ imprisonment for both charges, and those terms shall run concurrent to each other.