In the case, fraudsters told Chinese living in the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore that they had won big lottery cash prizes. But to get the prizes, they had to remit money as advanced fees, handling charges, government tax and legal fees into specific bank accounts in Hong Kong.

After receiving a report of the case, CCB officers quickly apprehended two visitors from Mainland and Taiwan. The officers immediately alerted a woman crime victim in Singapore.

During a house search, CCB officers seized documents of 40 different bank accounts belonging to the suspects. They found one of the suspects had used false travel documents to open bank accounts in Hong Kong to launder crime money. Between October 2005 and July 2008, the suspects laundered over $21 million with these bank accounts.

CCB also seized over $280,000 worth of assets from one of the suspects' bank accounts. The assets were returned to the Singaporean victim last month under a compensation order made by a District Court Judge. The two suspects were convicted at the District Court and jailed for five years and 16 months respectively.

As a token of her appreciation of CCB officers' efforts, the Singaporean victim came to Hong Kong especially to present a thank you banner to CCB on April 20, which was accepted by Senior Superintendent (Fraud, Counterfeit and Support) Lee Wing-kong and Superintendent Chan Sung-shing, Head of A Division.

A big thank you from a Singaporean