A Taiwanese woman was yesterday convicted of attempting to get bank staff to verify some US$30 trillion in fake documents.
The District Court heard that the woman and her three accomplices allegedly boasted the documents were for a meeting with officials from the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Hong Kong government.
The court found Hwa Sih-hul, 60, guilty of using two forged deposit forms and two deposit confirmations involved in the false claim to make HSBC staff believe they were genuine. She was acquitted of a count of using photographs of bogus HSBC staff name cards, a bank balance and a transaction statement.
Hwa’s defence was that she was acting as an interpreter for the group, which consisted of a Hongkonger, a mainland Chinese and Taiwanese national.
But Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong yesterday rejected her suggestion. “[She] repeated what the other three said in Putonghua,” he said. “She was not translating, but trying to convince [the staff member].” Yau also noted in his verdict that the staff members whom the group spoke to understood Putonghua.
Given Hwa’s involvement, the judge ruled it was not possible that she did not know the content of the documents – a key element in her conviction.
The court heard earlier that the group went to the HSBC main building in Central on March 26 to ask staff members Chang Kam-ngai and Yuen Wai-yiu to help present the fake documents to their seniors. They requested the bank verify the validity of the documents, the court previously heard, boasting the documents were supposedly for a meeting with top officials the next day.
Their plan was exposed after the staff called police.
Two of Hwa’s accomplices – Zhong Dihang, 34, and Jimmy Wu Ping-yang, 63 – earlier pleaded guilty to using fake documents. Zhong also admitted possession of a fake document, while Wu pleaded guilty to using a false passport. The fourth suspect is still at large, the court heard.
Source: scmp
