By
Daisy CL Mandap
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| Ylagan outside the District Court following an earlier hearing of her case(File) |
After more than seven years of insisting on her
innocence, the co-owner of the defunct Emry’s employment agency finally pleaded
guilty today, Jan 15, to four charges of laundering a total of $5.7 million
which she made from offering non-existent jobs in Canada and the United Kingdom
to some 500 Filipinos, mostly migrant workers.
Ester Ylagan, 71, who was described by her own
lawyer as “extraordinarily naïve and gullible,” appeared on the dock for the
first time since charges were filed against her in June 2018, and was ordered
remanded in custody until her sentencing on Feb. 2.
In court to listen to her plea were about a dozen Filipino domestic workers whom Ylagan had duped into paying between $10,000 and $15,000 for the bogus jobs in the first half of 2016. They had been told by the police about the hearing, and that Ylagan had agreed to plead guilty.
The offence of money laundering, or “dealing with
property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence”,
carries with it a maximum jail term of 14 years, and a fine of up to $5
million.
Ylagan had earlier insisted that she was innocent of
the charge, claiming that she was a victim herself of an online scammer she
named as “William Clinton”, who convinced her to recruit applicants for the
bogus jobs, and to whom she had remitted all the money she made from the
victims.
Her counsel, Michael Delaney, told Deputy District
Judge Katherine Lo that it took awhile for Ylagan to understand that the
offence of money laundering requires not just knowledge, but also “reasonable
ground to believe” that she was dealing with proceeds of a crime.
“It’s not just what the defendant believed but what
a reasonable, objective, person should have known,” said Delaney.
He also said there was a “substantial volume of
evidence” that showed Ylagan should have known that she was being scammed, like
the fact that she was being asked to send money by a person she had never seen
nor spoken to, to such places as Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Turkey.
The person who introduced himself to Ylagan as a
recruitment agent in the United Kingdom, also asked that the money be sent to someone called Joshue Ikechukwa or Rocky Sanchez, when his name was
supposed to be William Clinton.
It even got to a point where Ylagan’s staff who were
being asked to do the transactions began getting scared, especially when by the end of April 2016, the remittance companies started
rejecting their remittance requests.
All the while, Ylagan and the man who called himself
Clinton were said to be in “constant, daily and repeated communication” online, said Delaney, adding that he had never seen anything like
it.
He said Clinton would be kind and gentle one time,
then harsh, “almost borderline cruel” the next time, and was constantly putting pressure on her.
Delaney said the person Ylagan was communicating with
was an obvious scammer and fraudster, but she never saw him like this at the
time. “The defendant just followed whatever he said,” said the lawyer.
To make matters worse, Delaney said Ylagan was also defrauded
by a barrister who convinced her to sell her Hong Kong flat ostensibly so she
could refund the payments made by the job applicants, but then proceeded to pocket
the proceeds.
(In an earlier statement she made to the police, Ylagan
identified the barrister as Ody Lai, who at the time of their consultation in
November 2016, had already been suspended by the Barristers Disciplinary
Tribunal from practising in Hong Kong for four years, and to pay a penalty of $200,000
plus costs, for 10 counts of malpractice).
Delaney said that 12 months after Ylagan filed her
complaint with the police, the barrister
was arrested, although no further action had been made since. However, Ylagan is said
to have applied for legal aid to pursue her claim against Lai.
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| The ad posted outside Emry;s office in WorldWide Plaza in 2016 |
According to the summary of facts read out by the
prosecution, Ylagan was part owner of Emry’s which was founded in 1992. She
later set up Mike’s Secretarial Services in 2013 and she operated it as a sole proprietorship.
From December 2015
to May 2016 Ylagan advertised in a Filipino community newspaper (not The
SUN) regarding job offers in Canada and the UK, and also posted information
about this on her shop in WorldWide Plaza.
During regular orientations she conducted for the
applicants, she said those who wanted to apply for jobs in Canada should pay
$15,000 while those who wanted to work in the UK should pay $10,000. The fees
are supposed to be for the FICC (or Foreign Immigrant Clearance Certificate”
and FCC (“Foreign Employment
Certificate”) and are non-refundable.
In fact, said the prosecutor, the FCC or FICC is not needed before one can take up a job in either of the two offered destinations.
Ylagan promised the jobseekers that they would be paid no
less that 2,000 pounds a month, tax free, and given free accommodation. After
working for two years, they would be given three months’ vacation with pay. She also promised that they could leave in three months on a chartered
plane to London, accompanied by Hong Kong immigration officers.
According to the prosecution, more than 500 Filipino
domestic workers were lured by these promises, , paying Ylagan a total of more than $6 million. Between January and June 2016, part of this sum was remitted to overseas channels.
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'What about us?,' asked some of the copmplainants who attended court along with
Ester Bangcawayan from the Mission for Migrant Workers |
In the first charge, Ylagan is accused of sending to
Malaysia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso between
Jan 29 and May 5, 2016, a total of of HK$2,633,181.52 and US$44,658
(HK$347,439). The total sum of HK$2,980,620 was dealt with in cash.
In the second count which happened between May 12 to
23, 2016, the total sum of USD300,00 (HK2,334,000) was moved by Ylagan from an
account with Standard Chartered Bank to a recipient in Turkey.
In the third count, Ylagan, using an account she
held at HSBC, again sent to Turkey a total of US$10,055 (HK$78,227) between May
25 and 26, 2016.
She last sent a total sum of US$50,000 (HK$389,000)
from her HSBC account on Jul 8, 2016, again to Turkey.
In mitigation, Delaney said Ylagan first came to
Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper in 1984. She had gone to college but did
not finish her course. At the time she was married with three children in the
Philippines.
She later divorced her first husband and married
again, this time to Rick Ylagan, who founded Emry’s in 1992. They had one
son, Michael.
Ylagan has maintained a clear record for the past 40
years that she has been in Hong Kong. She is in good health though she has take
medication for stress-induced heart palpitation.
Following her arrest she had worked as an assistant
cook, but is currently unemployed, and depends on government support for her
daily needs.
Delaney submitted that Ylagan “was not a willing
participant in the scam,” made no financial gain from the transactions, and was
extremely remorseful.
Delaney added that Ylagan received only about $4
million from her job applicants, and the rest of what she had sent to the
scammer was her own money. But when Judge Lo asked if there was proof of this, Delaney
said there was none.
The judge then asked Delaney if Ylagan had repaid
some of the claimants, and he replied that only a handful got back their money.
Judge Lo instructed him to submit proof within the next three days to show how
much money had been repaid so this could be taken into consideration when sentencing.
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