Q6 – Combating money laundering and terrorist financing activities
MR CHAN CHUN-YING (in Cantonese):
President, the Secretary and Mr Jimmy NG just now referred to the first Hong Kong’s Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment Report published in April 2018, in which it is mentioned that the banking sector faces high money laundering risk if categorized by industry. Notwithstanding this, I consider that banking practitioners should, in their course of business, not be subject to a criminal liability equivalent to that for money laundering if no participation or complicity in money laundering is involved. According to the Report, in 2015, there were 16 conviction cases involving money service operators being used for money laundering, and only one of those cases involved the participation of money service operator as an accomplice in money laundering. I would like to ask the Secretary that since the commencement of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance, are there any banking practitioners in Hong Kong prosecuted and convicted for the criminal offences of assisting and participating in money laundering?
SECRETARY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES AND THE TREASURY (in Cantonese):
President, we have tried to gain an understanding of the prosecution data as well as the breakdown of the statistics on successful prosecutions, but the LEAs do not keep any statistics on money laundering by occupation. In this connection, we will try to see if we can acquire relevant figures in this regard.