By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Biscocho is on trial in the District Court case being heard at West Kowloon court |
A Filipina domestic helper who worked for
an employment agency owner accused of accepting payments for bogus
jobs and for laundering more than $700,000 paid by applicants has said in court
that she had no doubt the agency was licensed as her boss had told her so.
Giving evidence on the 17th day of her
trial along with the agency owner on Monday in District Court, defendant Marijane
Biscocho, 44, said she believed the agency, WHT Consultants Co in Kwun Tong,
was licensed.
Biscocho faces 20 charges, including violating her
visa condition by doing illegal work, violating the Trade Description Ordinance
by wrongly accepting payments for a product, and money laundering.
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Biscocho said her co-accused, Lennis Ebrahim, 55, had sent her photos of a business registration certificate after some job applicants demanded to see it.
The Filipina said she had worked for Ebrahim, and
her job included depositing money to the boss’ bank accounts and accepting job
applications.
She said that each time she sent money to the
Philippines for the training of applicants she also presented that as proof
that WHT was a licensed company.
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But on being questioned by her Legal Aid-provided
lawyer, Phil Chau, Biscocho said the document was in Chinese and that she could
not read it.
When asked about whether she knew that Ebrahim also
owned another agency in To Kwa Wan, the Remy Consultants Co, Biscocho said she only
learned about this when they moved to that address in 2019.
“I believe it was licensed because that was what
Lennis told me,” said Biscocho when Chau pressed her about WHT’s license. She
also said she did not know that Ebrahim had changed the name of WHT to Remy
until the latter told her.
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Asked if Remy was also licensed, Biscocho said she
was not sure but there was another business registration certificate displayed on
top of a cabinet in the To Kwa Wan office.
Ebrahim had also told her they were moving out of
their previous office in Kwun Tong because
the contract was not renewed.
The Filipina also said she was not aware that early
on, Ebrahim was using another name, Catherine Yu, but found out about this only
from a co-worker, Nympha Lumatac when she received a receipt for a Bank of
China check addressed to a Mr Yu in April 2019.
Biscocho said during questioning by Chau that she
came to Hong Kong in 1988 to work as a domestic helper of a Mr Chan in Shatin. At
the time of her arrest on Nov 7, 2019 she was under a domestic helper contract
with Peter Chan Hin-man, with a visa
issued on Sept 27, 2017 and valid until Nov 12, 2019.
But when questioned during her arrest, Biscocho
claimed she was working for WHT, with offices in Kwun Tong.
Biscocho said in reply to Chau’s question that she was
offered by Ebrahim a job at WHT to talk to applicants and answer their queries
about jobs. But she said she worked there only on Sundays as Ebrahim had two
regular employees, Lumatac and an Indonesian woman named Allin.
Scores of Filipino domestic workers had paid
placement fees to WHT to get their relatives in the Philippines to come to Hong
Kong or Macau for such jobs as waiter, housekeeper, printer, caregiver and
welder.
After more than a year of waiting, the applicants
realized there were no real jobs and decided to complain.
Seven of them are named in the charges against
Biscocho and Ebrahim: Rosalina Agcalis, Jocelyn
Domingo, Nena Castro, Maria Aurora Lagura, Jovelyn Villaflor, Mary Joy Liggayu
and Preciosa Abellera.
But when Chau mentioned the
names of some of the applicants, Biscocho said she attended to some or accepted
their documents, while Lumatac, who has disappeared after the complaints
started piling up, was the one who processed their applications.
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| Biscocho and Ebrahim are alleged to have laundered money from the illicit recruitment |
Biscocho faces
two counts of money laundering for handling a total of $299,745 in a Hang Seng Bank
account between Jun 17, 2018 and Sept 30, 2019. She is also accused of depositing
$110,500 in an HSBC account between Sept 23, 2018 and Jun 16, 2019.
Ebrahim faces
one count of money laundering for allegedly dealing with a total of
$331,216 between Sept 23, 2018 and Jun 16, 2019 in an HSBC account she held
jointly with Biscocho.
The trial continues.
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