By Daisy CL Mandap
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| This is how a bank account used for money laundering looks like |
Two Filipinas broke down in tears after they were found guilty on two separate charges of money laundering by Magistrate Vivian Ho at Eastern Court this afternoon.
Hazel
V. Gepulgani, 33, sobbed as she heard the verdict while her fellow defendant,
Marissa C. Mesa, 46, cried quietly.
Both
were immediately taken into custody to await their respective sentences on May 4 at 2:30pm.
Gepulgani
managed to hug her tearful sister who was in court, while Mesa was comforted by
her employers who had stood by her side throughout her trial and had cried with
her before the hearing started, apparently prepared for the worst.
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About
$1.35 million was found in both their HSBC bank accounts, which a key
prosecution witness said was part of some $2 million that she was told to
deposit to various accounts by a man who claimed to have sent her a valuable
parcel for which she had to pay customs and other duties.
Three
other Filipinas implicated in the scam had earlier pleaded guilty to the same
offence and were sentenced to between two and eight months in jail.
Gepulgani
who did not give evidence, was found guilty of one count ot “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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She
had claimed she lost her ATM card in Wanchai market, shortly after she opened a
savings account at HSBC. She said she rolled up her ATM along with a piece of paper
with her PIN on it, and stuffed them inside a shopping bag from which they must
have fallen.
She
said she never bothered reporting the loss to the bank as she no longer felt
the need to have an account, or checked if any transactions were made using it.
Mesa
was acquitted of conspiracy to deal with ill-gotten money, but was found guilty
on the alternative charge of dealing directly with proceeds of a crime.
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A
total of $1,075,781 was found to have gone through her HSBC savings account
between Apr 21, 2020 and May 25, 2020.
Mesa’s
defence was that a longtime friend called Elsa had asked her to open the said
account, and had asked for her ATM card without paying her anything.
However,
Mesa said in court that she did borrow $1,000 from Elsa two days later to pay
for services she had at a beauty parlor.
She
contested a statement she gave to the police earlier, in which she admitted
accepting $1,000 from Elsa in exchange for surrendering her ATM card. She said
she had been tired, hungry and scared when she made the confession.
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Her
female employer gave testimony to vouch for Mesa’s honesty, and also said
the helper and Elsa, who could no longer be found, were longtime friends.
In
dismissing their claims, Magistrate Ho said she found both defendants
untruthful and unreliable.
In
Gepulgani’s case, the magistrate said she found it incredible that the Filipina
did not notice the thick rolled-up documents faling from her bag while she
did her marketing.
Ho also noted that Gepulgani had said that she opened a bank account to keep her money safe as she was sharing a room with a co-worker. Thus, it was “contradictory and unbelievable” that after she lost her ATM card she suddenly thought she no longer needed a bank account.
It
also did not sound right that she never bothered to check her account when she
was physically in Hong Kong and was given an email address and phone number that
she could call to report the loss.
In
Mesa’s case, the magistrate noted that she had displayed “unbelievable and
unreasonable behavior,” particularly when she said she and Elsa never talked
about money and bank accounts, yet she readily gave in to a request for her to
open an account with HSBC.
Her
claim that it took her three days to hand over the ATM to Elsa also sounded
incredible, given that they were seeing each other six times a week, said the
magistrate.
She also noted that during
cross-examination Mesa often said she was confused or her mind had blanked when
asked difficult questions.
In
contrast, the two prosecution witnesses were described by the magistrate as
reliable. PW2, a police officer, testified in a “simple, straightforward manner”
and the procedure he described as having been taken after Mesa was arrested was
fair.
In
mitigation, the two defense lawyers said the defendants both had clear records
and had family to support back in the Philippines.
Gepulgani, who has been jobless since June
2020, is married to a fellow overseas worker who is based in Oman. They have
three children who are being looked after her mother.
Mesa, on the other hand, is a single mother to
three grown-up children who are in the care of her parents. Her lawyer said
what the defendant did was totally out of character, as was attested to by her
employers.
He asked for “maximum leniency” in sentencing
her.
In response, the magistrate said the offences
called for an immediate custodial sentence, but ordered for background reports on
the defendants prior to sentencing.
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