'Dirty' money fear on Cup bets

People who bet on World Cup matches with legitimate overseas bookmakers could face money-laundering charges.

Two days before kick-off in France, a grey area in the law has come under the legal spotlight.

Section 25 of the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, dealing with laundering, includes a clause which refers to 'conduct which would constitute an indictable offence if it had occurred in Hong Kong'.

The clause is understood to have led some in the Department of Justice to believe that as bookmaking is illegal, once the proceeds of an overseas win arrive in the SAR they are 'dirty'.

Using them - putting them in a bank account, for instance - could therefore constitute money laundering.

But others argue Hong Kong law could not make money legitimately obtained in another country illegal when it arrives here.

Detectives believe the argument may only be settled by a test case.

Police can examine suspects' bank accounts under the ordinance's sweeping powers. Anyone convicted of money laundering faces up to 14 years in jail.

Police said 17 of 19 people arrested at the weekend in an operation against illegal horse-race bookmaking could face money-laundering charges. 'These arrests are different because these people were part of an illegal bookmaking operation,' Organised Crime and Triad Bureau Senior Superintendent Steve Tarrant said.

'But if the betting in the other country is legal, for example Stanley Ho's football pools in Macau . . . there is a possibility that you are still money laundering by settling bets in Hong Kong.

'But I would not like to say definitely without taking further legal advice from the Department of Justice - it's a very complicated piece of legislation.' Mr Tarrant said intelligence showed football betting was increasing in Hong Kong and that the illegal horse race bookies operating out of Hong Kong, Macau and China might have been operating for 'many years'. They were turning over at least $80 million a race meeting.

The probe, which straddled the racing season, saw 19 men and women arrested for allegedly running 14 illegal bookmaking syndicates, two of which were in Hong Kong.

One of the clandestine bookmaking scams was offering odds on English soccer.

Money laundering was not an offence until the enactment of the ordinance in 1995.

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