The SUN HK : Emry’s owner jailed 32 months for laundering $5.7m earned from jobs scam

Ylagan running for cover after an earlier hearing of her case at the District Court (File)

The co-owner of what used to be the biggest employment agency deploying Filipino workers to Hong Kong was today sentenced to 32 months’ imprisonment for laundering more than $5.7 million she made from defrauding about 500 jobseekers.

Ester P. Ylagan, 71, was stoic as she was sentenced by Deputy District Judge Katherine Lo, two weeks after she pleaded guilty to four charges of money laundering.

The charges stemmed from the cash remittances she made to various people in Malaysia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Turkey between January to July 2016, knowing that the money she sent were proceeds from a crime.

In court to witness the end of the seven-year case were three of more than 100 Filipino victims who filed complaints against Ylagan after being charged between $10,000 and $15,000 each for non-existent jobs in the United Kingdom and Canada.

Joining them was Ester Bangcawayan of the Mission for Migrant Workers who helped pursue their case with the police and the courts.

Her victims (first 3 from the left) were in court along with staff of the MFMW

Dozens of victims had agreed to act as witnesses against Ylagan, if she persisted in pleading not guilty to the charges. Those who were in court said they were glad that Ylagan was finally going to jail, but were upset that she was not ordered to compensate them.

The judge said Ylagan promised the mainly domestic helper applicants jobs in Canada and the UK, with salaries of as high as £2,000 for any job. Keen to leave their Hong Kong jobs, they paid Ylagan more than $6 million in total between January and June 2016.

The judge said part of this sum was remitted by Ylagan overseas. The rest, which she said amounted to about $570,000, was not accounted for. “So the defendant received more than she remitted,” said the judge.

Pindutin para sa detalye

This belied the defense claim that Ylagan was herself a victim, asserting that about $2 million of what she sent overseas was her own money.

More than 100 complainants against Ylagan gathered outside Central police station in 2016

In the first charge, Ylagan was accused of remitting a total of HK$2,633,181.52 and US$44,658 (HK$347,439) to Malaysia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso between Jan 29 and May 5, 2016. The total sum of HK$2,980,620 was dealt with in cash.

In the second count, she was accused of moving a total sum of US$300,000 (HK$2,334,000) from an account with Standard Chartered Bank to a recipient in Turkey from May 12 to 23, 2016.

The third charge said Ylagan, using her account at HSBC, again sent to Turkey a total of US$10,055 (HK$78,227) between May 25 and 26, 2016.

TAWAG NA!

In the fourth charge, she remitted again to Turkey a total of US$50,000 (HK$389,000) from her HSBC account on Jul 8, 2016.

Judge Lo said that Hong Kong laws provide a maximum jail term of 14 years and a fine of up to $5 million for the crime of money laundering.

In Ylagan’s case, she used as starting point a sentence of four years in jail, but after allowing a one-third discount - 23% for the guilty plea and 10% for the supposed reimbursement of 45 victims - and applying the totality principle, arrived at a sentence of 32 months for all charges.

PINDUTIN DITO

Before sentencing, the judge noted that Ylagan had continued sending money to “William,” a recruitment agent she met only online, even after being warned by the Philippine Consulate that she was being scammed.

Even her own staff at Emry’s had refused to send any more money on her behalf after several remittance companies stopped taking their orders as early as April 2016, but she persisted.

Ylagan, here at The SUN office in May 2016, was advised to return the OFWs' money immediately

Rejecting the mitigation that Ylagan had been put under severe stress by the long period of time it took for the case to be resolved, the judge said the delay was “not entirely unreasonable.” She noted that the police had to interview about 100 of more than 500 victims, and had to check with several remittance companies and consult the consulates of the Philippines, the UK and Canada to build up their case.

Ylagan’s jail time will only partly vindicate the duped jobseekers, who had clung to the hope that they could still recover their money, despite the defendant filing for bankruptcy earlier. Her lawyer also told the court that she had subsisted on her earnings as an assistant cook, and later, on financial assistance from the government.

Through her counsel, Ylagan claimed she had intended to refund her victims by selling her flat in Aberdeen, but that her erstwhile friend and legal adviser, barrister Ody Lai, who offered to sell it for her, managed to acquire ownership over the property without paying her anything. Ylagan said she was still seeking Legal Aid to recover the flat.

Ylagan fled Hong Kong in July 2016 after the victims filed complaints with the Philippine Consulate and the police, and Emry’s was forced to shut down.

Before leaving Hong Kong, she jumped the gun on the complainants by going to the police to file a complaint about being duped of $4.19 million by a business partner she met only online, named William Clinton.

She and her husband, Ricardo Ylagan (who passed on in October 2017), also managed to transfer ownership over their Aberdeen flat to their son, Ridge Michael, on July 23, 2016, allegedly on Lau’s advice.

But on March 20, 2017, the flat was recorded as having been sold to Lai for $5 million. (Related story here: http://www.sunwebhk.com/search?q=Ody+Lai&m=1

In December 2017, Ester returned to Hong Kong and filed a complaint with the police against Lai, who was investigated but was allowed to post bail.

On June 7, 2018 Ylagan was formally arrested by the police for money laundering. She was also allowed to post bail.

All throughout, her victims were given help by then Labor Attache Jalilo dela Torre, the Consulate’s assistance to nationals section, the Mission for Migrant Workers, and The SUN.

In mitigation, defense counsel Michael Delaney said Ylagan, a college dropout, came to Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper in 1984. She was married with three children in the Philippines at the time.

Ylagan later divorced her first husband and married Rick Ylagan, who founded Emry’s in 1992. She bore him a son, Michael.

She had a clear record for the past 40 years in Hong Kong prior to the job scam saga. Letters submitted to court by various people, including employers and church people, described her as a woman of good character, while her lawyer said she was remorseful and at her age, is not likely to reoffend.