HK$7.87b seized in dirty cash and assets

Figure at 10-year high as police and banks step up fight against suspicious transactions

Hong Kong authorities seized HK$7.87 billion in dirty cash and assets in the first 10 months of the year, the Post has learned.

The 10-year high came amid a surge in reports of suspected money laundering and terrorist financing activity.

Figures from the anti-moneylaundering squad show the amount was 150 times the HK$52 million law enforcers took from criminals in total last year. It was almost threefold the HK$2.72 billion in assets frozen under court orders over the past six years.

Government sources told the Post that the crimes behind the huge sum included drug trafficking, smuggling, commercial fraud and internet scams.

“Once these cases end with convictions, the money will go to the government treasury after deductions for costs,” one said.

The upswing was partly the result of investigations into the rising number of reports involving financial transactions with suspected links to money laundering or terrorist financing.

The force said the “significant increase” was mainly due to one particular ongoing money laundering probe involving HK$7.3 billion worth of assets.

But a police spokesman said: “There is so far no evidence to suggest any of the assets are linked to terrorist financing activity in Hong Kong.”

The anti-money-laundering squad – the Joint Financial Intelligence Unit – is staffed by police and customs officers. It handled 92,115 suspicious transactions last year – the most since it was set up in 1989. The team received 64,850 such reports in the first 10 months of 2018, a large increase on the 23,282 in 2012.

“Manpower has been expanded from 48 officers in 2017 to the current 65 in place since August 2018,” the spokesman said.

The growth in suspicious transactions stems from a flood of reports by banks after they boosted resources devoted to tracking suspect money. More than 93 per cent of reports last year were lodged by the banking sector.

Some HK$275 million in dirty cash and assets was paid to the government in the first 10 months of this year. But money laundering convictions fell from 160 in 2012 to 90 last year.

Last month officers from the force’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre nabbed a local businessman and his female business partner after his bank account was found to have been used to collect and launder HK$620 million obtained in scams during the first seven months of this year.

The officers took control of HK$33 million in the account.

The Post reported in August that thousands of Hong Kong bank accounts were used by local and global fraudsters to collect and launder about HK$4 billion from July last year to this July.

Many account holders were mainland residents believed to have been recruited by underground money exchanges across the border.