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| Ylagan outside the District Court in earlier hearing (File) |
After seven years of investigation and court
hearings, 70-year-old former employment agency owner Ester Ylagan will be tried
at the District Court between January and February next year, on charges of
laundering a total of $5.7 million over a seven-month period in 2016.
The 15-day trial from January 15 to February 2, 2024
was set after a pre-trial hearing held in chambers today at the District Court.
Ylagan pleaded not guilty to all four charges of money
laundering nearly a year ago, or on Sept. 20, 2022.
The trial date was originally set for January this
year but Ylagan’s counsel had asked for more time to review the documents in
the case which include 4,000 depositions of 43 witnesses, including 25 listed
as victims.
Ylagan’s bail of $40,000 was renewed until the
trial, set before Deputy District Court Judge Katherine Lo.
According to the charge sheet read out to Ylagan in
court on August 11 last year, the alleged offences took place between Jan 29 to
Jul 8, 2016, and involved a series of transactions, all in violation of the
Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance.
In the first charge, Ylagan is accused of “dealing
with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence”
on Jan 29 and May 5, 2016, in the sum of HK$2,633,181.52 and US$44,658
(HK$347,439).
The total sum of HK$2,980,620 was dealt with in
cash.
The second count allegedly happened between May 12
to 23, 2016, during which the total sum of USD300,00 (HK2,334,000) was moved by
Ylagan from an account with Standard Chartered Bank.
In the third count, Ylagan is accused with dealing
with money believed to be proceeds from a crime, amounting to US$10,055
(HK$78,227) between May 25 and 26, 2016.
The last charge accuses Ylagan of handling a total
amount of US$50,000 (HK$389,000), knowing it to be proceeds of a crime, on Jul
8, 2016.
The last two transactions were made using an account
Ylagan held at HSBC.
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| OFWs line up to snap overseas jobs offered by Ylagan in 2016 (File) |
The dates of the alleged offenses coincided with a job recruitment to Canada and the United Kingdom which Ylagan conducted at Emry’s office in WorldWide
Plaza. At the time, Emry’s was the biggest recruitment firm for Filipino
domestic workers in Hong Kong.
Relying on Emry’s solid reputation in the business,
about 200 Filipino migrant workers said they were enticed to apply for the jobs
advertised by Ylagan, purportedly in the United Kingdom and Canada, for which
each applicant was charged $10,000 or $15,000.
The jobs all turned out to be bogus, and Ylagan
jumped the gun on the applicants by going to the police and complaining about
an online business partner she named as William Clinton Evans who allegedly
duped her of $4.19 million before disappearing.
Ylagan also told police in a statement that it was
Evans, whom she met only online, who offered to place her applicants in the UK
or Canada. But after signing up about 400 applicants, she said she stopped
because Evans wanted her to double the number.
Her unseen partner then stopped communicating with
her, and Ylagan fled to the Philippines. She returned to Hong Kong in June 2018
and was promptly arrested.
Lawyers acting for the complainants at the time claimed
they uncovered documents showing Ylagan and several other people close to her
had sent a total of around $10 million to several countries as far apart as
Malaysia and Burkina Faso.
The documents were turned over to the police, along
with the names of the others involved in the apparent money laundering scam,
but only Ylagan was arrested and charged.
Of the more than 200 Filipino applicants who sought
police help, about 150 have filed claims to recover their money from Ylagan.
Some of the claims were upheld at the Small Claims
Tribunal in Ylagan’s absence while the rest were moved to the District Court
where they remain undecided.
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