'Victims' of $14.6M jewelry theft in talks with accused to find more of loot

By Vir B. Lumicao 

Carmelita Nones is the principal suspect in the case

Prosecutors consolidated today, Jan 18, a $14.6 million theft case in Eastern Court against a Filipina with two separate handling of stolen goods cases against her three co-accused, all domestic helpers like her.

Magistrate David Cheung approved the consolidation of the cases reached during a meeting of the prosecutor with lawyers of first defendant, Carmelita G. Nones and her niece Maricris G. Nones, friend Cristina N. Alagna and sister Marina G. Biala.

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Barrister Oliver Davies, representing Nones, applied for an adjournment of the case until Mar 8 as he said negotiations were underway among the defense, the prosecution and the victims that could lead to a recovery of more of the missing jewelry pieces.

The four defendants will be committed to the Court of First Instance after the Mar 8 hearing, the prosecution said.

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In the Dec 21 hearing, Nones offered to plead guilty to all the charges against her in exchange for the dropping of all charges against her three co-accused, her lawyer said.

After the consolidation, six of 19 charges were read out to Nones, the prime suspect in the biggest theft case in Hong Kong allegedly pulled off by a Filipino domestic helper against her employers.

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Five charges of handling stolen goods were laid against Maricris Nones, seven against Alagna and one against Biala.

In the consolidated charge sheet, the prosecution said prime suspect Nones stole about 200 jewelry pieces and gold bars from the Deepwater Bay house of former New World Development executive director David Liang and his wife Helen Frances during six periods.

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The prosecution charged that between June 17, 2018 and July 27, 2018, Nones stole an assortment of jewelry including eight necklaces, seven bangles, 16 pairs of earrings, 1 bracelet, a 50-gram gold bar and a 10-gram gold bar belonging to Mrs Liang.

Between Jun 27 and Aug 11, 2019, Nones was accused of taking two Piaget luxury watches valued at $100,000 each belonging to the Liang couple.

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The third charge said between Jun 12 and December 2018, Nones stole a necklace, 2 bangles, 7 pairs of earrings and 1 bracelet belonging to Mrs Liang.

A piece of jewelry said to be among those missing & recovered from a pawnshop

From Sept 4 to December 2018, Nones allegedly stole 23 necklaces, 3 bracelets, 2 bangles, a pair of earrings, 1 piece of earring, 11 pendants, 5 rings, various jewelry pieces valued at $3,000, and cash worth $4,000. The total value of the stolen belongings was $120,000, the charge said.

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Between Jun 3 2018 and Feb 11, 2019, Nones took 6 necklaces, 9 bangles, 6 rings and 4 pairs of earrings, the prosecution charged. Between May 13 and Jun 2, 2018, she allegedly stole 3 bangles, 7 bracelets, 2 pairs of earrings, 3 rings, 1 single earring and 4 other pieces of jewelry.

Maricris Nones was charged with five counts of undertaking to help handle and dispose of batches of the stolen jewelry (by pawning them) on five occasions – on June 3, 2018, Oct 16, Nov 25 and Dec 4 of the same year, as well as on Feb 18, 2019.

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Alagna was charged with seven counts of handling and helping dispose of stolen property on June 3 and 15, on Aug 9, Sept 30 and Dec 23 in 2018, then on May 5 and June 2, 2019.

The fourth defendant, Biala, was charged with handling stolen property all belonging to Elaine Liang between July 31 and Sept 5, 2019.

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These were 23 necklaces, 3 bracelets, 11 pairs of earrings, 1 piece earring, 1 pendant, 5 rings, 1 necklace, $4,000 cash, with a total value of $120,000, as well as various pieces of jewelry worth $3,000.

The prosecution said in past hearings that Maricris Nones and Alagna were arrested last year after their names appeared in a police search of pawnshops for the stolen goods.

In Biala’s case, a bag containing several of the stolen jewelry pieces and cash was allegedly found in her room by the police. 

Magistrate Cheung remanded all four defendants in custody until their return to court on Mar 8. 

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Chater Rd divide keeps OFWs’ favorite Central haunt a bit tidy

By Vir B. Lumicao 

Central's Great Divide aims to promote distancing and cleanliness

Parallel barriers were set up two meters apart in the middle of Chater Road on Sunday,  Jan 17, to allow for passage and more orderly occupation by Filipino domestic workers who spend their Sunday on the thoroughfare in Central.

The central partition was a welcome sight for one who has been used to seeing the favorite gathering and resting place of migrant workers taking their day off on Sundays.

Only the section of the road between Statue Square and The Cenotaph war memorial was left open. But it was more crowded this time than in past Sundays, as those displaced by the Chater divide moved to that part.

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By 2 pm, two police vans disgorged officers who descended on Chater Road and walked the length of the street handing out leaflets that reminded the migrant workers of the city’s rules on keeping social distancing and mask-wearing.

Joining the patrol were two staff of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department bearing placards bearing the same anti-virus campaign messages against gatherings of no more than two persons and non-wearing of masks.

Three officers approached a group of Filipinos sitting on carton mats on the roadside and told them to stay apart. They picked a Filipina worker for a random check.

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When asked what they were accosting her for, they said it was just a HKID check.

"No, we are not issuing her a ticket, only checking her ID,” said a female officer. Asked if the police issued any fixed penalty ticket among the immigrant workers who were in Central, the officer said none was ticketed.

Police were still everywhere, but no penalty tickets were issued

Labor Secretary Law Chi-kwong told the Legislative Council last week that during similar patrols from Dec 11 last year to Jan 10, officers had issued 92 fixed penalty tickets. Of these, 65 were issued to foreign domestic helpers.

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The barriers were set up by the authorities obviously in a bid to promote distancing and to tidy up the stretch starting from the Prince’s Building pedestrian crossing to the Pedder St end of the street.

The Pedder St end still looked cluttered as workers continued to assemble and fill door-to-door boxes there as in previous Sundays. But the number has visibly thinned after the Christmas season.

FDHs fall prey to bitcoin and ATM scams

By Daisy CL Mandap

Click baits such as this are all over Facebook

Do you want a parttime job?

This was the question that hooked Filipina domestic worker Lani (not her real name), and nearly landed her in jail.

Lani, a widow with a child and a sickly mother, said she was enticed to take up the offer which she saw in a Facebook post early last year because there were many others who expressed interest in it.

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“So ako po komo nakita ko na madaming Pinay na interesado, nag ‘how?’ ako. Doon na nag start,” Lani said. (Since I saw a lot of Filipinas who were interested, I asked ‘how.’ That was how it started).

Lani said the man who only went by the name “Parttime” merely asked her if she had a bank account because that was where her income from the parttime work would be paid.

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Soon after, the man transferred $8,000 to Lani’s account and told her to use it to buy bitcoin for him. She was to be paid $200 each time she did this.

Lani, who until then did not even have an inkling as to what a bitcoin – a digital currency that can be used to buy other currencies, products and services – was, was directed to go to a bitcoin ATM near the Mong Kok MTR station and do the transactions there.

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“Ang dami din pong mga Pilipina doon na bumibili. Parttime daw po nila, kaya ako po, isip ko legal ito. Minsan may tatawag pa sa akin na nag-aalok ng bitcoin.”

(There were a lot of Filipinas there who were also buying bitcoin. They said it was their parttime work, so I thought, it must be legal. Once in a while, I’d even get a call from someone offering me bitcoin).

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She said that each time she went there, she had to line up because even amid the pandemic, many people, including Filipinas, were there to buy the cryptocurrency.

“Nakakalula yung mga halaga ng dine deposit sa kanila,” Lani recalls. “Nung minsan may nakasabay ako, $15,000. Sabi pa ni ate sa akin, mababa pa daw yun, kaya inisip ko legal.”

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(The amount transferred to their accounts was mind-blowing. Once, I was there with someone who had $15,000. She said it was actually not that much, so I thought it was all legal).

Lani says many Filipina DHs line up at bitcoin ATMs such as this for their 'parttime work'

Lani said she bought bitcoin for the man four times, each time after a deposit was made into her bank account. After the first $8,000, the man transferred $10,000 next. The third time, she said she couldn’t remember if it was $11,000 or $12,000, and for the fourth and last time, $4,000.

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She stopped doing the unknown man’s bidding after that because in April last year, Hang Seng Bank called her to say there had been a “mis-transfer” of $4,000 into her account. Lani replied that she had already used the money to buy bitcoin, and the bank officer sort of hinted she had done something wrong.

Panicked, Lani called up her handler for the first time, and was surprised to realize that the man was not a local as she had thought, as his English was impeccable and he did not have any accent at all.

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The man reportedly assured her that it was all a misunderstanding, and that he’d settle the matter. But Lani had gotten spooked enough and said she wanted to quit. The man told her to tear up the SIM card that she had been using to call him, and she did.

Lani thought no more of that incident until police came knocking on her employer’s home on Dec. 27 last year to say she was being arrested for deception. Lani was taken to the Central Police Station where she said she was strip-searched and interrogated.

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It turned out the person who transferred $4,000 into her account had complained of having been scammed by someone who offered a Samsung S20 phone to him in exchange for that money. The buyer was told to transfer the money to Lani’s account, and when he did not get the phone, he complained to the bank and the authorities.

At the police station, Lani’s male employer came with a private lawyer who instructed her not to make any statement. Despite this, Lani still had to go through the process of being photographed, fingerprinted and asked a lot of questions.

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Eventually, she was released on police bail, and told to report back this Jan 23. She remains terrified of that experience until now.

Lani’s woes do not end here. She has been told by her employer of 29 months that she needs to pay back $25,000 – the money they claimed to have paid the lawyer who watched over her while she was in police custody.

To drive home this point, her employer deducted $500 from her latest pay.

Told that she cannot be made to pay for something she did not ask for, or that the maximum amount that can be deducted from her monthly salary is only $300, Lani dares not raise issue with her employers over this. She has been through a lot lately, and all because she wanted to earn a little money on the side.

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3 Indonesian DHs test positive for Covid-19, as surge in cases feared

By Vir B. Lumicao 

Mong Kok is among 3 adjacent districts where a new cluster of cases has emerged 

Hong Kong reported 55 new coronavirus cases today, Jan 17, with four imported cases including three newly arrived Indonesian female domestic helpers.

The tally is expected to jump significantly on Monday, as 80 preliminary cases were also recorded today.

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A Health Department information staff said the Indonesians aged 40, 50 and 36 arrived on a Cathay Pacific CX796 flight from Jakarta on Jan 15.

Also found infected was a 56-year-old female air crew who arrived on the same day on a UPS62 flight from Anchorage, Alaska. She, like the three Indonesians, was asymptomatic.

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The rebound in new cases sparked concern that the fourth wave of infections could spike again. There are now a total of 9,558 confirmed cases in the city. Of the 51 new local cases, 16 had untraceable sources.

Among the local cases were 15 linked to an outbreak in the YauTsimMong (Yau Ma Tei- Tsim Sha Tsui -Mong Kok) districts, raising the number of infections there to nearly 100.

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Three of the new cases are cleaners hired by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department to maintain public toilets in the area.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection said in the daily press briefing that while it was possible the cleaners had infected each other, it was also possible that there was environmental contamination in the toilets.

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Since last week, residents of 20 buildings in the area had been subjected to mandatory testing. Chuang said today that eight more buildings will be included in the list.

“We have cordoned off an area where buildings there are now subject to mandatory testing,” she said.

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Preliminary cases were reportedly found among residents who tested in a mobile testing centre within the cordoned off area.  Chuang said more than 1,100 residents were sent to mandatory testing but 2,300 turned up voluntarily, according to figures as of Jan 16.

She said among the new cases from the YauTsimMong district were laid-off construction workers, retirees, students, security workers, a worker in an elderly care home, residents  and shopowners, apart from the toilet cleaners.

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Many were ethnic Southeast Asian minorities, Nepalese, Chinese, as well as Indonesian  domestic helpers.

Dr Sara Ho, a chief manager of the Hospital Authority, said that as of 9am today, 558 confirmed patients were being treated in 24 public hospitals and the community facility at AsiaWorld Expo, of whom 42 are in critical condition, 28 are in serious condition and 482 are stable.

29 elderly people have reportedly died in Norway after receiving the BioNTech jab

The upsurge comes as a government health panel is expected to meet on Monday to discuss whether the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is safe for use in Hong Kong.

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Executive councilor Dr Lam Ching-choi said government experts will carefully review the safety of the vaccine, following reports from Norway of frail, elderly people dying after receiving the jab, the only one administered in that country so far.

But Lam, who also chairs the Elderly Commission, said the city’s vaccination campaign in elderly homes should kick off in February as planned despite the reported deaths.

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He said the risk of death posed to the elderly only justified continuing with the first stage of the community inoculation program.

“After balancing the risks of infections and vaccinations, our view is, unless there is more evidence [of vaccination risks], inoculations should still happen using whichever jabs that arrive first,” Lam said on a TVB program.

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He said that probably those who died were very weak.

Hong Kong has ordered 7.5 million doses of the BioNTech vaccine, and another 7.5 million doses each from Sinovac and Astra-Seneca.

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