Hong Kong customs officials yesterday said that they had dismantled a money laundering syndicate that used cryptocurrency to process about HK$1.2 billion (US$154 million) in illegal funds, in what they said was the first successful operation of its kind.
“It is the first time in Hong Kong that a money-laundering ring involved in using cryptocurrency to wash dirty cash and conceal the source of criminal assets was broken up,” Hong Kong Syndicate Crimes Investigation Bureau Senior Superintendent Mark Woo Wai-kwan (胡偉軍) told reporters.
Investigators said that four men — including the alleged local mastermind of the syndicate — had been arrested and bailed while about HK$20 million had been frozen.
The men opened various local bank accounts with shell companies and made transactions through a virtual currency-exchange trading platform to turn laundered cryptocurrency into real cash for clients.
About 60 percent of the funds had been channeled through bank accounts in Singapore over the past 15 months.
The group traded using coins issued by the cryptocurrency tether, officials said.
Cryptocurrencies are a boon to criminal networks and launderers because they are even harder to trace than conventional cash transactions.
Hong Kong has long been something of a laundering hot spot.
Local authorities have said that they take the issue seriously and do their best to prosecute criminal enterprises.
Hong Kong has tightened oversight on cryptocurrency trading, requiring all platforms to register with a local watchdog, and be subject to anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing rules.
However, transparency campaigners have long complained that lax regulations make Hong Kong an easy place to launder money and set up shell companies.
In January, seven former and current bank employees were arrested as part of an operation against a US$810 million international money-laundering syndicate, in what authorities said was their biggest bust in years.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while