Hong Kong police arrest 67 over stooge accounts for money laundering, warn criminals recruiting more domestic helpers, other non-locals
- Police warn that non-ethnic-Chinese residents are increasingly being targeted by criminal syndicates to share bank account details
- Some domestic helpers are acting as middlemen for scammers, recruiting people who are given HK$1,000 to HK$2,000 for their accounts, police say
Wu said non-ethnic-Chinese residents were increasingly being targeted by criminal syndicates to share bank account details.
“Recently, the number of non-locals, especially foreign domestic workers, recruited or manipulated as stooge account holders has been rising,” she said.
Under Operation Sunlit Sky, the force arrested 35 men and 32 women, aged between 20 and 74, for allegedly sharing their accounts with a criminal syndicate for money laundering. Nineteen were of non-Chinese ethnicity.
Investigators also uncovered 52 scam cases with 108 victims and involving total losses of HK$73 million in the operation.
Senior Inspector Chan Wing-yin of the Kowloon East regional intelligence unit said there had been a “palpable rise” in virtual bank accounts being used to launder proceeds of crime.
Chan said some domestic workers had been recruited as go-betweens to get their compatriots to share their bank accounts with scammers for rewards of between HK$1,000 and HK$2,000.
Chan said stooge account holders were often tempted to hand over their details to criminals for quick cash.
“Through social media recruitment or friends’ referrals, scam syndicates will offer a reward of a few thousand dollars for the person to establish a virtual bank account and hand over login details to them,” Chan said.
The victim sustaining the biggest loss among the 52 cases was a 27-year-old male clerk, who fell for scammers’ offer of a part-time job paying HK$20,000 a month.
His task was to borrow money from different loan companies and then transfer the sums to an account of a sham firm.
“The syndicate claimed that it would return the borrowed funds, so the man did as he was told and ended up racking up a huge debt,” Chan said.
The senior inspector warned that holders of accounts used to launder criminal proceeds would also be committing a money laundering offence.
Jerman Cheung, head of financial crime compliance at Airstar Bank, a local virtual bank, said it would conduct checks on an applicant’s identity, background and motivation for establishing an account.
“Once there are suspicions, we will conduct an internal investigation. Should criminal elements be involved, we will hand over the matter to police,” Cheung said.
Under the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, a person commits an offence if they have knowingly dealt with criminal proceeds, or have reasonable grounds to know so. The maximum penalty upon conviction is 14 years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$5 million.
