Chinese community leader caught in people smuggling

tenpence · Joined: 24 Feb 2003 Posts: 174

He Jia-Jin, the former vice president of the London Chinatown Chinese Association (http://lctca.co.uk/), was caught up in a recent investigation on fake DVD's and people smuggling.

Not a great role model for the community...

Also not great given first generation Chinatown attitudes towards other members of the community.

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Fake DVDs sold at Kent markets are helping to fund illegal immigration and people smuggling.

A BBC South East undercover team worked for a year investigating the exploitation behind the Chinese counterfeiting trade in Britain.

A reporter infiltrated a squalid home where a number of illegal immigrants lived and found widespread breaches of immigration law.

The team also found links to He Jia-Jin, the former vice president of the London Chinatown Chinese Association, who is due to stand trial in Hong Kong accused of money laundering offences.

Counterfeit DVDs were openly sold at a weekly car boot fair at Swanley, which is close to the M25 in Kent.

'Snakeheads smuggled me'

More than 30 illegal traders used the site each Sunday to sell the fake films, according to the investigation team.

The organisers of the fair told them they did not pay pitch fees and they had tried to have them evicted.

BBC South East Today also discovered that the man who transported the pirate DVD sellers to boot fairs, Chun Lin, was also an employee of Mr He.

The car was followed to a house in Plumstead, south-east London, where an illegal immigrant called Liu, Li-Wan, who has been prosecuted for three counterfeiting offences, told BBC South East Today that he owed £5,000 to a 'snakehead' Chinese human trafficking gang.

"I have no job, and no food so this is the only way I can support myself. Snakeheads smuggled me here."

He said he came to Britain fearing persecution in China, his family helped him pay the snakeheads their £15,000 fee, and the DVDs fund his repayments.

The surveillance operation also found that a property owned by Mr He was being used as an illegal home of multiple occupancy.

The house in Canterbury Place, near Elephant and Castle, south London, was filled with Chinese migrants, some of whom had questionable immigration status.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that Southwark Council had written to Mr He as early as 2001 to tell him there had been reports of overcrowding.

It showed that they raised concerns about fire alarms and fire doors and stated there was evidence that tenants were living in cupboard spaces.

Council officers also wrote to the Home Office suggesting suspicions of immigration offences there.

Money laundering offences

Mr He is due to stand trial in Hong Kong on 2 October accused of money laundering offences.

According to the court papers, a banking mistake meant he was credited with more than £400,000 that did not belong to him.

The prosecution accuses him of transferring that money into a series of other accounts, in the knowledge that it was not his to use.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

In 1999 a Greek court convicted Mr He of attempted fraud in a case thought to be linked to people smuggling.

Two years later he was arrested by the National Crime Squad as part of a people smuggling investigation. He was released without charge.

The Assets Recovery Agency is currently trying to seize £1.5m of assets belonging to Mr He under the proceeds of crime act.

It claims he has laundered money - a charge he has denied.

Paying your debts

Richard Strawson, of Kent Trading Standards, said the DVDs may come at a fraction of the price of the genuine product but they were of inferior quality and there was a hidden cost.

He added: "People just see it as a bargain. They see the DVD before it goes to cinema but unfortunately there are problems. There have been known links to organised crime and we believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg."

It is thought that crackdowns on illegal working have forced people into the counterfeit DVD trade.

"When you've got sacked by your employer... you still need to pay your debts to the snakeheads and, you know, a lot of them still have a large amount of money they need to pay back," lawyer and civil rights campaigner Bobby Chan said.

'Without his knowledge'

Kent Police Det Insp Steve O'Keefe said: "The scale of the problem hasn't changed. Currently we're managing 12 live operations into people smuggling.

"Over the past five years we've executed 28 search warrants in an attempt to rescue victims of trafficking, and we've managed to identify and rescue 26 women."

Mr He declined BBC South East's requests for an interview but during a telephone conversation he said he did not know his employee was involved in counterfeiting, and he would not employ someone who did that.

Mr He said he rented 68 Canterbury Place to four people who let more and more people stay without his knowledge.

He said when he realised it had become overcrowded he issued a warning and then kicked them out.

Chun Lin, who repeatedly drove the DVD sellers to and from boot fairs in Kent, said he did not know his passengers were counterfeiters and was only responding to their requests for a lift.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6975166.stm

chunxueping · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 749 Location: Beijing, PRC

Ahh poor man, we all been there. You go to the bank and find you got £400,000 you not know you got and then when you try to give to charity people accuse you of money laundering.

You try to give a few friends somewhere to stay for night or two, give them a lift to the market and see how they repay your kindness.

Cannot help anyone these days.......

Edwina Lee · Joined: 06 Oct 2006 Posts: 1282 Location: High Wycombe, UK

I would like to follow up this story as the investigation progresses.

paulindigo · Joined: 12 Oct 2007 Posts: 1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7035108.stm

If you run simple checks, he operates another company called MoneyTT based in London. He offers, money transfer services not only to mainly Chinese people (UK based Chinese companies and individuals who may or may not be illegal), but also several online betting companies within the UK such as Ladbrokes, Bet365, Betfair and Samvo. You only have to google MoneyTT to come up with the companies offerring this service.

The service allows betting these companies to accept customers and deposits from Asian Countries such as China, Hong Kong and Macau. Firstly, it is illegal for operators to operate from within the first two countries.

Secondly, a lot of customers from these regions are illegal bookmakers operating within the region and simply hedging their bets to their own customers within these regions.

To setup this type of operation, they require sending large amounts of deposits into these companies based over here, from my experience and what I have heard, this can amount to large amounts of money, i.e millions of GBP. This is where moneytt come into offerring their services.

They have contacts and access into opening and controlling bank account under corporate and individual entities. They allow these betting companies into accepting large deposits from these customers. Depending on size of deposit, these companies, under advise from MoneyTT, inform their customers to break the large deposits into smaller amounts, to avoid any detection or flagging from the banks.

There are no know your customer checks conducted by these betting companies, as they see this as the responsibility of MoneyTT. But this is very very questionable.

For illegal bookmakers in Asia, are they going to declare their income from illegal activities???

The above stated companies, will deny this, as I work within the industry and feel its time to be a whistleblower for these illegal activities.

I would gladly take your own opinion.

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