Security chief defends decision not to send money laundering alert to banks in Hong Kong, calling information ‘unverifiable’

Minister hits back at criticism, while sources tell Post officials feared warning would create impression city is human trafficking hub

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Hong Kong lawmaker Kenneth Leung raised questions about the planned alert to banks that was in the end blocked by police. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 7:11pm, 31 Oct 2018Updated: 11:06pm, 31 Oct 2018

Hong Kong’s top security official has hit back at criticism that the police force is more concerned about the city’s image than tackling money laundering linked to human trafficking.

Playing down the extent of the problem compared to other crimes fuelling the massive flow of dirty money through the local banking and financial system, Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu confirmed at a Legislative Council meeting on Wednesday that an “alert” on the matter had not gone out to banks in the city and had been blocked by the force’s top brass, but not for “image” reasons.

Hong Kong is a member of the money laundering watchdog the Financial Action Task Force. Photo: Shutterstock

Lee was responding to a question from lawmaker Kenneth Leung, stemming from an exclusive report in the Post earlier this month revealing that police chiefs blocked the warning. The alert had been prepared by a specialist law enforcement unit, and the decision led critics to question Hong Kong’s determination to tackle human trafficking-linked money laundering.

The security minister told lawmakers the alert was not disseminated to banks because it had been prepared initially by a non-government organisation and that “reservations” had arisen about certain “unverifiable information” contained in it.

Earlier this month, anti-human trafficking campaigners expressed shock at news of the suppressed alert. That coincided with the publication of a report by the city’s Ombudsman finding a complaint that police were unreasonably withholding data on dirty money transactions linked to human trafficking to be “unsubstantiated”.