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Never lend your bank ATM card to anyone.
This was the advice Jennifer (not her real name), a Filipina
domestic worker, heard from everyone when she realized too late that the card
she had lent a male friend was being used in illicit cash transfers totaling
more than $1.2 million.
Jennifer sought advice from a helpers’ online group in late
June after receiving a phone call from her bank asking her if she had a joint
account with another person. It turned out her ATM card had been used
repeatedly by her online boyfriend for illegal money transfers.
The latest case emerged just two weeks after another
Filipina, Estrella Gumabay, was jailed 12 months for her role in laundering
nearly $1.6 million of suspected “love scam” money by lending her two ATM cards
to a male friend she met online.
Jennifer said in her online appeal for help that she was
alerted to her boyfriend’s illicit activities after hearing from the bank. The
group in turn referred her to The SUN, who helped her report the matter to the
Consulate and the police.
Jennifer, who has been in Hong Kong for just three years,
said she met the man on a dating site in late March this year.
About a month later, the man asked her to open a bank
account, and then to lend him her ATM card, saying he needed a bank account
from where he could draw his salary, but he didn’t have any in his name.
Jennifer opened an account with $1,000 of her own money as
opening deposit, then gave the ATM card to her friend. Soon after, large sums
of money began moving in and out of her account.
For the period April 20- May 15 alone, more than $750,000
had passed through her savings account in amounts ranging from $100 to $50,000.
Each time a large sum was deposited, it would almost be immediately withdrawn.
Then on May 21, a huge deposit of around $500,000 was made
to her savings account, while a separate one for $20,000 was deposited into her
current account.
A deposit of $24,000 was made into the savings account a
week later, but withdrawn the same day.
That was the last transaction made into her accounts,
leaving the $20,000 in her current account before the money flow halted.
At least three other similar attempts to use Filipina
helpers in money laundering were disclosed on the same online page, DWC Help
Group, before Jennifer came forward.
But fellow workers who are aware of the scam warned the
target Filipinas of the danger they would get into if they allowed their bank
accounts to be used as conduits of money-laundering criminals.
“Huwag kang papayag, Sis. Ikaw ang makukulong diyan,” warned
one commenter.
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