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| Employer's ex-wife was the recipient of dirty money deposited to defendant's bank account |
This was a lesson that Vinecar Vineles, a 39-year-old domestic helper, learned the hard way after she was jailed for six months for allowing her HSBC bank account to be used as recipient for illicit payments totalling $97,000.
She remitted the entire amount to her employer’s former wife, who now lives in Thailand.
Vineles was sentenced at West Kowloon Court by Principal Magistrate Amy Chiu after she pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Sept. 25) to money laundering, otherwise known as "dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of indictable offence."
The offence is punishable under the Organized
and Serious Crimes Ordinance, for which the prescribed maximum sentence is 14 years in prison and $5 million fine.
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| Pindutin para sa detalye |
Magistrate Chiu expressed sympathy for Vineles, noting that
she did not benefit from these transactions and had no knowledge of the scam, but
stressed that the offense was serious and required a prison term.
She cited three previous cases
in which the starting points ranged from six months in prison for money laundered
amounting to $20,000; to 15 months imprisonment in a case involving $290,000. A more comparable case,
which involved $95,000, had a starting point of 12 months.
In Vineles’ case, Magistrate
Chiu chose nine months’ imprisonment as the starting point, and then reduced it
by a third for her guilty plea.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
The case arose after the ex-wife
of Vineles’ employer called to ask for her HSBC account’s number and told her
to expect payments, which she would then remit to her in Thailand.
Her lawyer said that since
she had worked for the family for more than 10 years, eight of them with the
woman, she agreed.
It turned out that the money had come from a scam involving the fake takeover of beauty salons that were going
out of business, with the promise of a profit for investors once the businesses
were sold after being made profitable.
According to the case read
in court, a victim identified as Prosecution Witness 1 (PW1), joined the takover
bid and paid an initial $52,000 in three deposits into Vineles’ account.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
When PW1 heard nothing more
about the deal, they complained to police, who traced the bank account to
Vineles.
Investigation showed that other
deposits were also made into the account between Oct. 29, 2022 and Aoril 3, 2023, with the total reaching $97,000.
After being arrested, Vineles
initially denied knowledge of the scam, saying he was just following orders
from her employer’s ex-wife.
But as this case has shown, that was not an acceptable defense as by lending her bank account, she should have known that she was dealing with proceeds from a crime.
She changed her mind shortly
before she appeared in court, according to a source.
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