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| The three were sentenced at Shatin Magistrates Court |
One Filipino and two Indonesian maids who helped Immigration
officers smash a syndicate that used bogus contracts to get them a work visa, have each been sentenced to three months' imprisonment, half of what they should have gotten if they did not cooperate with investigators.
The three helpers, who all pleaded guilty to a charge of
conspiracy to defraud, were Filipina Rose P. Alarcio, 48; and Indonesians Rohaela (one name only), 43, and Dwijayanti Ayun.
Shatin Magistrate Samuel Yip gave all three an identical 50%
discounts in their sentences for helping in the investigation of the scam that
led to the arrest and conviction of an employment agency director who arranged
their fake employment contracts.
The defense counsel asked for a bigger discount than the
normal 30% for the three, saying that the mastermind who she did not identify, was
convicted recently and is now serving jail time due to the substantial help
provided by the maids in busting the scam.
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She said the defendants issued statements identifying the
mastermind, providing the agency’s address and testifying during the trial of
the culprit.
On May 29, the District
Court convicted the mastermind, a 43-year-old Hong Kong
resident, of three counts of conspiracy to defraud and five counts of
using false instruments, and sentenced him to 43 months in jail.
The scam was discovered
when Immigration officers investigating illegal foreign workers found out the
agency had been arranging for foreigners to apply for work visas using the
bogus employment contracts for domestic workers.
Another 17 Indonesian and Filipino helpers involved in
the case were jailed for eight months each in Shatin court earlier for conspiracy
to defraud, making false representation to an immigration officer, and breach
of condition of stay.
The defense lawyer said Alarcio came to Hong
Kong to work as a helper but her contract was terminated
prematurely.
The lawyer said the cases of the three defendants were identical and involved the same agency director who supplied them with fake employment contracts.
The lawyer said the cases of the three defendants were identical and involved the same agency director who supplied them with fake employment contracts.
In the case of Ayun, the lawyer said the Indonesian used to
work as a domestic helper, but lost her job. She went to the agency in search
of a new employer, and was provided a bogus work contract that she used to
apply for a working visa. After getting the visa, she took up a different job.
She is now on a dependant visa after marrying a local
resident.
Immigration has been
investigating the jobs scam under its Operation Shadowcatcher which was
launched in March 2018.
Since then, 30 people have
been arrested including the mastermind, other Hong Kong
residents who signed up as employers, as well as Filipinos and Indonesians with
FDH work visas but employed in other unspecified jobs.
