Agencies and Mary Ann Benitez Tuesday, March 04, 2014 Former football boss Carson Yeung Ka-sing has spent his first night in jail after he was found guilty on five counts of money laundering. The hairdresser turned Birmingham City Football Club owner faces up to seven years in jail when he is sentenced in the District Court on Friday. His bail was revoked and he was remanded in jail yesterday. Yeung, 54, denied charges of laundering HK$720 million between January 2001 and December 2007, but District Court judge Douglas Yau Tak- hong said he was self-contradictory in his testimony and was making it up as he went along. Delivering his verdict, Yau said: I find the defendant not a witness of truth. I find that he is someone who is prepared to, and did try to, lie whenever he saw the need to do so. The trial cast a spotlight on how the hairstylist-turned-businessman made his fortune. Yeung, who stepped down as chairman pending the case, told the court he made his money from hairdressing, through which he earned HK$20 million; share trading, in which he accumulated HK$300 million; gambling in Macau, which earned him HK$30 million; property buying and other investments. The court heard that large amounts were moved in and out of five bank accounts owned by Yeung and his late father, Yeung Chung. Prosecutors pointed to suspicious check payments made to Yeung by employees of Macau companies, including a junket operator who earns commissions from casinos by attracting rich gamblers. They focused on the flow of money in and out of Yeungs accounts, including cash checks of HK$72 million from Macau casino operator Sociedade de Jogos de Macau among 436 cash deposits. They said Yeung was part of a money-laundering machine linked to organized crime in Macau. Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Yeung appeared calm but looked tired during the court proceedings and did not react when the verdict was read out. His lawyer, Graham Harris, declined to comment. The trial has revealed Yeungs close ties to Macaus casino world, both as an investor and gambler, and how that led to business investments that helped him amass his wealth. Yau said he found it extremely strange that some of Yeungs business dealings were conducted without a written agreement, even when the amount of money involved was huge. That was, he pointed out, unless, of course, those engaged in such a transaction would rather there not be records. Yau said there were reasonable grounds to believe that multiple business dealings in which Yeung was involved made use of funds which represented proceeds of an indictable offense. The board of Birmingham International said the guilty verdict against Yeung in no way affects the normal operations of the company and its subsidiaries.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 12:32:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015