The police launched a large-scale anti-gang operation codenamed "Ambush Arrow," arresting 82 people, including the mastermind "Thin B" of the Sun Yee On triad, core members, and their families. Investigations revealed that over the past 21 months, a licensed trust service company was used to deposit and transfer a total of nearly 40 billion Hong Kong dollars in suspicious funds.
The police believe that the trust company had no substantial trust business and was merely a tool to disguise the flow of funds. It self-directed and quickly transferred funds to multiple individual puppet accounts and virtual currency platforms, even used by the company's directors to pay off luxury goods credit card bills. This case is pointed out as the largest-scale money laundering case using a trust service company in history.
The group established a trust service company in 2021, and between 2022 and 2024, used the company's accounts to transfer 19.8 billion Hong Kong dollars, accumulating a total of 39.6 billion Hong Kong dollars, suspected to be criminal proceeds. The funds were mostly deposited by shell companies with no actual operations or income. The police also seized a large amount of fine wines and other luxury goods.
Facing the bank's questioning of the huge transactions, the involved company submitted forged trust agreement documents, full of content loopholes, with errors in identity information and dates, showing that the company did not actually provide any trust services, only using the trust license to deceive the bank for fund transfers.
On July 29, the police raided the Kowloon Bay trust company, arresting 10 directors and staff involved, including a director who also served as the compliance and anti-money laundering reporting officer, who had legal responsibilities but was suspected of knowingly breaking the law. During the operation, about 1.1 million Hong Kong dollars in cash and a large number of documents were seized.
The police emphasized that this case is the first time a large-scale money laundering case using a trust service company as a cover has been cracked, with a record-breaking amount involved, severely damaging the reputation of Hong Kong's trust industry. The police believe that this operation has successfully dismantled the money laundering group, severely damaging the financial chain of the Sun Yee On triad.
Over the past two years, the police have established a cross-departmental team to investigate the various criminal activities of this large gang group, involving gambling, illegal lending, fraud, and violent incidents, while using the trust company for money laundering and conducting loan fraud through ostensibly legal import and export trade.
In the "Ambush Arrow" operation, the police searched multiple companies and residences in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, arresting 82 male and female suspects aged between 19 and 78, all holding Hong Kong identity cards. During the operation, assets worth 1.13 billion Hong Kong dollars were frozen, 8.26 million Hong Kong dollars in cash and over 7 million Hong Kong dollars worth of luxury goods were seized, including more than 1100 bottles of fine wine, several luxury watches, jewelry, handbags, and gold items.
The police reiterated that they will not tolerate any illegal, violent, or triad activities, and will continue to crack down on related crimes in an intelligence-led manner to maintain social order.
