The person in charge of a money changer shop in Mong Kok was charged with two counts of money laundering for assisting a phone scammer to deal with about 440,000 Hong Kong dollars in crime. He was convicted in a district court the previous year. The Organisation and Serious Crimes Ordinance increased his sentence by one-third and sentenced him to 54 months in prison. He filed an appeal today (22th). The appeals court stated that there was no evidence to show that he knew that the money involved was related to the telephone fraud. He questioned the original sentence of the district court judge and sentenced him to appeal, reducing the sentence to 36 months.
Government lawyers pointed out that due to the rampant telephone fraud, in order to crack down on related crimes, there were additional factors in the case. The question was how much. However, the Appeals Division pointed out that it was known that the source of the proceeds of the crime was a factor of imprisonment, but there was no evidence that the appellant Fang Zhixin knew that the money involved came from a telephone fraud. The Appeals Division also stated that "there is no reason to fully accept the imprisonment," referring to the crime of money laundering as opposed to telephone fraud. The Appeals Division finally decided to revoke the sentence imposed by the trial judge under the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, and the sentence was appealed. Fang Jin also appealed the conviction but was rejected by the appeals court.
The case revealed that a 70-year-old man received a call posing as a public security officer in the Mainland in July 2015, stating that he was involved in money laundering, and he took the savings of HK $ 409,000 to the money changer involved in the case, and gave it to the party after saying the secret number. He thought he could get the money back after the Mainland's review, but he later suspected that he had been deceived into the police. During police investigations, it was discovered that another deceived man had gone to the money exchange shop and handed over HK $ 37,000 to the party. Fang claimed that he had given the money involved to others after his arrest.
Source: ON.CC
