21 April 2014 - The Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong organized an anti-money laundering talk with Senior Inspector Herman Li of the Joint Financial Intelligence Unit, Narcotics Bureau, Hong Kong Police Force on April 13. The talk was held at the Consulate General’s premises and discussed how Filipinos can avoid being victimized by money launderers.

Senior Inspector Li explained that a person can unwittingly get entangled in money laundering through the perpetrator using telephone deception, wherein a victim is tricked into transferring a large amount of money under duress, because the perpetrator is pretending to be a government agent pressuring the victim to do as he or she says. Another type of money laundering involves gaining the trust of the victim in order to use his or her bank account as a temporary repository of funds.

Real case studies of people were used, some of whom were convicted with up to 3 years’ imprisonment for their involvement in money laundering activities. Senior Inspector Li assured the audience that should they invite a person in for questioning because of a suspicious transaction report, the person will not get into legal trouble as long as he or she can satisfactorily explain the source of the money.

A person found guilty of money laundering can be fined up to HK$5,000,000 (an estimated PHP28,661,035) and imprisoned for up to 14 years. END