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A 24-year-old man was jailed for 24 months for money laundering at the District Court today (October 15).
The court heard that an overseas Chinese student in France received separate phone calls from two women in April this year. The duo claimed to have represented a Hong Kong tourism investment company and informed the victim that he had won a winning of about HK$ 1.2 million.
The women requested the victim to pay an administration fee before getting the winning. He subsequently banked in a payment to a bank account in Hong Kong as instructed. He, however, failed to get in touch with the women since then. Feeling suspicious, the victim made a report to Hong Kong Police.
Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) officers took up the case for investigation and found that the defendant had set up the bank account in March this year. The man was subsequently arrested on May 11.
He was charged with 12 counts of dealing with property known to represent proceeds of indictable offence and the sentence was handed down today.
CCB has made all-out efforts to combat lottery scams and worked closely with local banks and remittance agencies to draw up preventive measures. Intelligence-led operations have also been conducted to detect such criminal activities.
Police remind the pubic to watch out for the crime and not to believe any anonymous calls or email messages and follow swindlers' instructions to bank in money into suspicious bank accounts. They should also report to Police when in doubt.
Police Report No. 7
Ends/Thursday, October 15, 2009
Issued at HKT 21:33
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