Complying with Commissioner's Operational Priorities 2014 to target and investigate money-laundering activities and cementing the partnership with the Department of Justice (DoJ), Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) organised an experience sharing session given by DoJ on "Practical Investigation and Prosecution of Money Laundering Cases" in the Auditorium at Police Headquarters on April 25. Over 300 detectives responsible for money laundering investigations at District, Region and Headquarters levels filled up the whole Auditorium to share experience with a team of prosecutors from DoJ. 

 

The sharing session began with a presentation on "Prosecuting Money Laundering" delivered by a Senior Public Prosecutor (SPP), Mr Anthony Chau. He illustrated the extensive impact of money laundering by quoting, as a metaphor, a media report that "a rat head was found in a bowl of soup" sold by a restaurant. "You would not want not only another bowl of soup, but also not any other thing from the same restaurant. Money laundering would erode one's confidence in Hong Kong as one of the finest financial centres in the world." 

 

Mr Chau then offered the audience some useful advice concerning relevant legislation, the common features of money laundering activities and examples of analysing the flows of funds with prosecution strategies. 

 

The Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Maggie Yang, commented: "Police and the DoJ are the blades of a pair of scissors that have to work together in order to get results.  To catch a big fish, Police may have to make lots of extra effort to look into the upper and lower layers of the money launderer's bank accounts in order to identify the big fish and show the court the possible syndication and seriousness of the offence."

 

Relevant material has been uploaded to CCB's website for officers' reference.