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| Defendant said he got the fake deposit slip from the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos |
A District Court judge has sentenced an elderly Filipino male
tourist to four years in prison after finding him guilty of presenting a fake
deposit slip for US$943 billion at the HSBC main office in Central in April 2018.
Judge Stanley Chan convicted and sentenced Brudencio J. Bolaños on
Dec 30 on a charge of using a false instrument.
The judge rejected a psychiatrist’s evidence for the defense
that Bolaños, who had pleaded not guilty to the charge at the start of his
trial on Nov 1, was suffering from a “delusional disorder” when he presented
the fake document to HSBC staff.
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He said the government psychologist who examined Bolaños
shortly after his arrest on Apr 9, 2018 had cleared him of any mental problem.
Bolaños, who was said to be 70 and single, had claimed that
deposed President Ferdinand Marcos personally gave him the US$943 billion to
fund a charitable foundation and was deposited in his HSBC account on Jul 25,
1983.
He arrived in Hong Kong on Apr 2, 2018 as a visitor and a
week later, went with a Malaysian male who spoke Cantonese and English to the
fifth-floor counters of the HSBC head offices in Central where he presented the
deposit slip to a staff.
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HSBC assistant manager Cheung Wan-yuet, who testified for
the prosecution, invited Bolaños and his escort to the interview room after the
staff passed her the spurious document.
Cheung told the court HSBC had no record showing Bolaños had
an account in the bank.
The second prosecution witness, officer Deng Tsz-teng, said that
when he arrested Bolaños, the elderly man had 10,000 Japanese yen and PhP240.25
in his possession.
Bolaños at first insisted on seeing HSBC’s global head of
banking, a Ms Chen. But when he heard that police officers called by bank staff
were coming, he and the Malaysian ran to the escalator. Bolaños was nabbed on
the fourth floor but his companion escaped.
Judge Chan said the defendant knew from the start that the
bank instrument was false. He said the case had an international element as Bolaños
traveled from Manila to carry out the scam in Hong Kong .
“The defendant was definitely not acting alone. Who was his Malaysian
companion? Who paid for his fare and his accommodation?” the judge asked.
The amount for the false instrument was the biggest so far
in monetary value to have been presented to a bank in Hong
Kong and, as in most cases, was linked to the fabled Marcos hidden
treasure.
