Father and daughter jailed over e-mail scam

A father and daughter were jailed yesterday for laundering more than HK$43.2 million in what police described as a classic Nigerian e-mail scam run by a man who is still at large.

Chiu Kit, 39, was convicted in the District Court on one joint count of money laundering and jailed for five years. Her father, Zhao Hongquing, 75, also received a five-year term but was given a six-month discount because of his old age.

The pair opened two bank accounts in the name of shelf companies into which, between August 2005 and January 2006, hundreds of deposits were made from around the world, including the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Germany and Canada. The money was later remitted into over a dozen accounts on the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Switzerland.

Acting Chief Inspector Man Ngai-man of the Commercial Crime Bureau said police launched an investigation after an American man said he had fallen victim to an e-mail scam. He was told that he could collect up to US$8 million in a will from a distant relative if he first paid US$27,679 in administration fees.

He never received the money.

Zhao claimed he had no idea where the money was from and only created the bank accounts and two shelf companies under his daughter's instructions. But Judge Kevin Browne rejected his explanation.

'It is difficult to say [Zhao] played a minor role. It was he who opened the account and gave the bank instructions on the remittances.'

Chiu, who ran a secretarial service company for 10 years, said she opened the accounts for her cousin's boyfriend, Cai Xiaohe, who said he needed the accounts to handle his business in Africa. She said she thought the money was proceeds from normal business.

Judge Browne dismissed her claim, saying she was experienced in opening companies for clients, and in this case none of the money wired into the two Hong Kong bank accounts was from Africa.

Police said they did not know the source of all the transactions but when an account processed money from an indictable offence, the rest of its transactions may also be considered illegal.

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