W hen the former Democratic Party legislator, Ted Hui Chi-fung, flew to Denmark, on November 30, ostensibly to attend a meeting on climate change, he faced nine criminal charges, some grave. He had been trusted by the Chief District Court Judge, Justin Ko King-sau, who permitted him to leave Hong Kong on a duty visit from November 30 to December 5, on condition he returned thereafter. Hui, however, betrayed Ko’s trust, and flew to London instead on December 5, where he said he intends to remain in self-imposed exile.
The offenses Hui faces include attempting to pervert the course of public justice, obtaining access to a computer with dishonest intent, and criminal damage. He has also been charged with using a harmful substance to harm others, arising out of an incident in the Legislative Council when noxious substances were thrown around, and contempt, arising out of another incident there when fighting broke out and the Council’s officials were injured. By his failure to return, he is also now liable to prosecution for bail violation, an offense punishable with 12 months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
While in Denmark, moreover, Hui reportedly met with the president and vice-president of the Danish Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee, on December 2. According to Danish insiders, he used the meeting to call for the European Union to enact legislation enabling sanctions to be imposed on Chinese officials deemed to have violated human rights in Hong Kong. If true, Hui would be guilty of colluding with external forces to bring about hostile outcomes in his home city, contravening the National Security Law, an offence which, if classified as “grave”, is punishable with “life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years” (Art.29).
If, therefore, Hui imagined that he could finance his life on the run with funds from Hong Kong, he will have had a rude awakening
Given the scale of Hui’s alleged criminality, therefore, he is clearly a fugitive who must be relentlessly tracked. The Secretary for Security, John Lee Ka-chiu, has described him as “shameless, hypocritical and cowardly”, and he must be pursued to the end of his days. Although it beggars belief, he has even had the gall to complain that the Home Affairs Bureau has stopped the monthly payments of HK$33,950 ($4,379) he receives as a district councilor, thus indicating he is even prepared to pocket public money he has not earned. Hui must never be allowed to forget, whether through international arrest warrants or otherwise, that the law has him in its sights, and that no matter where he lurks, he will never be safe.
In the meantime, the authorities must do whatever they can to frustrate Hui’s plans. Indeed, after arriving in London, he complained that bank accounts belonging to himself and his family had been frozen in Hong Kong, which he called “political retaliation through economic oppression”. Not surprisingly, he has touched base with the London-based Hong Kong Watch, the notorious propaganda outfit which whitewashes protest-related violence and peddles fallacies about China. Its founder, the serial fantasist, Benedict Rogers, even claimed that the freezing of Hui’s assets was a “terrible incident” that had “shocked the world”, which, even for him, was ludicrous.
The police force has, however, revealed that the bank accounts of Hui and his family were frozen on suspicion of misappropriating donations. John Lee himself says this law enforcement action was conducted in accordance with the anti-money laundering legislation, a reference to the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance (Cap.455). He explained that the “asset freezing mechanism is to protect the property of victims, so lawbreaking elements cannot use these as they wish”.
Having raised money by crowdfunding, Hui brought two unmeritorious private prosecutions, one against a police officer and the other against a taxi driver, both of whom had upset the protest movement, whose patsy he was. After the Secretary for Justice ascertained they had no evidential foundation, and were an abuse of process, both cases were dismissed by the courts. Not surprisingly, therefore, Hui only needed to dip very slightly into his war chest, which was vast.
In an audit declaration dated August 14, Hui disclosed that HK$3,608,607 had been raised by crowdfunding, of which HK$1,126,237 went on legal fees. Since his prosecutions were nipped in the bud, the amount attributed to legal fees seems exorbitant. He was, after all, not represented by some high-powered Senior Counsel, backed by a team of junior barristers, but by a lone solicitor, Victor Yeung Sui-yin, who, like him, is a Democratic Party member of the Central and Western District Council. Yeung’s charges would have been modest, and the reported fees will therefore require verification. With interest, moreover, Hui was left with a surplus of HK$2,195,043, the fate of which has yet to be ascertained.
However, Senior Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah, from the police force’s national security department, has now confirmed that, in the course of investigating suspected violations of the National Security Law, assistance had been sought from various banks, asking them to freeze funds related to a crowdfunding operation linked to Hui. He revealed that Hui may have diverted sums away from their intended purpose for his own personal use, by using various accounts to which he had access, and this is now being investigated. Indeed, John Lee explained on December 16 that “the reasons for freezing the accounts were linked to money laundering, and had nothing to do with his absconding”.
In Hong Kong, crowdfunding itself is largely unregulated, although both equity crowdfunding, by which people invest in an early-stage unlisted company, and peer-to-peer online lending, are controlled. If, however, crowdfunding is used to raise money for one purpose, but it is then used for another, whether involving specific crime or personal enrichment, this will constitute an offense. If a bank has concerns that a particular transaction is illegal, it is required to file a suspicious transaction report (STR) with the authorities. In 2019, the Joint Financial Investigation Unit (JFIU) received 51,588 STR reports, of which about 86.6 per cent, or 44,689, were filed by the banks.
The JFIU, which was established in 1989, comprises officers from the Hong Kong Police Force and the Customs and Excise Department. It manages the STR system in Hong Kong, and, when reports are received, it analyzes them, and, if there are grounds for concern, it then alerts the law enforcement agencies in or outside Hong Kong, as well as financial intelligence units elsewhere. Once the JFIU issues a Letter of No Consent (LNC), in response to the STR, the bank, or other financial institution, is required to freeze the account.
The LNC informs the institutions that the police reasonably suspect that the funds are the proceeds of an indictable offense, and the bank must then act on it. If it allows the account holder to access the funds, it could be guilty of money laundering. In Hui’s case, therefore, the JFIU must have had genuine concerns over the money in Hui’s accounts, and, once the banks were asked to freeze them, they were obliged to comply.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the absurd claims of Hui, this appears to be a straightforward case of suspected purloinment of somebody else’s money. Theft is illegal everywhere, including the United Kingdom, although anyone listening to Rogers could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. If, therefore, Hui imagined that he could finance his life on the run with funds from Hong Kong, he will have had a rude awakening. Few people, however, will shed any tears for an individual who has hoodwinked the judiciary, betrayed his constituents, and, at least for the time being, cheated justice.
The author is a senior counsel, law professor and criminal justice analyst, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
