Customs smashes Hong Kong money-laundering ring accused of smuggling HK$166 million over world’s longest sea crossing
- The case is said to be the first to involve bulk cash smuggling and the use of cross-border couriers
- Investigators suspect part of the cash was laundered through Macau casinos
Hong Kong customs officers have broken up a money-laundering ring accused of smuggling nearly HK$170 million (US$21.8 million) in criminal proceeds out of the city over three months via the world’s longest sea crossing, arresting five people in the first crackdown of its kind.
Couriers were hired to take the money over the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and investigators suspect that part of the cash was laundered through Macau casinos, the Post has learned.
Officers from the Customs and Excise Department seized HK$20.3 million in cash along with money transfer recipients and mobile phones during a law enforcement operation that ran between Thursday last week and Monday. They also froze HK$580,000 in bank accounts belonging to some of the suspects.
“It is the first time Hong Kong customs has broken up a money-laundering racket that was involved in bulk cash-smuggling operations and the use of cross-border drivers,” Senior Superintendent Mark Woo Wai-kwan, of customs’ syndicate crimes investigation bureau, said on Wednesday.
Woo said officers had sought help from their counterparts in Macau and Zhuhai in an effort to trace the “dirty” money and locate its recipients at the other end of the criminal chain. He said investigations were continuing and further arrests were possible.
Customs officers on Thursday last week arrested two drivers and seized HK$20 million after intercepting their vehicles – a seven-seater van and a tow truck – on the Hong Kong side of the mega bridge.
