The SUN HK : Witness tells how she lost $2M to scam linking 2 Filipinas

The trial at Eastern Court continues on Feb. 13

Trial has begun at Eastern Court on money laundering charges against two Filipinas, with the main prosecution witness detailing how she lost more than $2 million to scammers who used various bank accounts to receive her payments.

Two of these accounts belonged to Hazel Gepulgani, 33, and Marissa Mesa, 46 -- the last of a group of five Filipinas who were charged last year with money laundering.

Gepulgani is accused of dealing with property known or believed to be proceeds of an indictable offense, as a result of $281,400 being deposited in her HSBC ATM account from June 13, 2020 to June 18 2020.

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Mesa is charged with conspiracy to deal with property known or believed to represent proceeds of indictable offense, as a result of $1,075,781 being deposited in her HSBC ATM account from April 21, 2020 to May 25, 2020. She is also facing an alternative charge of dealing with such property.

Gepulgani and Mesa are free on bail of $1,600 and $20,000, respectively.

Three of their co-accused -- Fatima Sumcio, 47, Judyline Astronomo, 46, and Ayishah Barton, 40 – had earlier been sent to prison after pleading guilty to a count each of dealing with property known or believed to be proceeds of a crime. Their HSBC accounts were used to launder stolen money amounting to between $247,000 and more than $1,000,000.

Sumcio, Astronomo and Barton were sentenced to eight, four and two months in prison, respectively, by Magistrate Edward Wong.

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In her testimony on Friday, Wong Sze-man said her brush with the scammers began when she posted on Facebook Marketplace on April 3, 2020 that she was selling face masks.

One person named Michael ordered 20 boxes but she could not fulfill the order because she had run out of stocks. Their communication continued, with them exchanging photographs on Whatsapp and Michael telling her he was a pilot in the United States.

On April 12, Wong said her birthday was near and Michael said he would send her a gift -- a parcel from the US.

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A few days later, a certain Eric called and told her that he was from the Global Link Logistics company and that they had a parcel addressed to her. But she needed to pay $17,000 for tax and other fees before they could deliver.

She transferred the amount into a bank account number given by Eric, and that parcel soon became the center of the scamming operation.

On April 15, Wong again received a WhatsApp message from Eric who said the parcel contained US dollars so she had to pay another $60,000 into a bank account number than he sent. She paid.

On April 16, Eric again messaged her to say that the parcel contained gold jewelry and so she needed to pay another $125,000.

On April 20, Eric said she needed to communicate with his senior. She then received a long email from that senior, who said that because the parcel contained US$510,000 in cash and jewelry worth HK$6.3 million, she needed to pay a government tax of $311,900.

Of the two bank accounts she should deposit her payment, one was an HSBC account in the name of Mesa, where she transferred $241,900.

On April 23, she received another message, telling her to pay $220,000 for security provided by the company to the parcel. One of the two bank accounts in which she was told to pay $170,000 was Mesa's.

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On April 27, another message told her that because of the parcel’s valuable content, it needed to be flown into Hong Kong by private jet costing $750,000. The amount was actually $1,250,000 but the company’s director volunteered to shoulder $500,000 of the amount. Again, Wong paid into two accounts, one of which is in Mesa’s name, which received $600,000.

On May 6, the company asked for $520,000 to pay for government security guards because the contract for private security had lapsed. One of the bank accounts that received payment was in the name of Gepulgani, which got $100,000.

On June 22, she said she received another demand for $400,000 for certification from Interpol (presumably the International Criminal Police Organization) to certify that the parcel was not for illegal purposes. She paid the amount into two bank accounts.