Five men and two women, aged between 24 and 31, who were members of a Loco London Silver fraud syndicate, were sentenced at the Hong Kong District Court Tuesday for conspiracy to defraud.
The terms of imprisonment for the five men ranged from four years to two years and two months while the two women were sentenced to imprisonment of two years to 19 months, both with suspension for three years, according to a press release of the Police Tuesday.
The court heard that between September 2000 and April 2002, thesyndicate advertised on newspapers to lure applicants for the job of office assistants in their sham companies.
Ten women and two men, aged between 31 and 56, were being recruited in different sham companies located in Tsim Sha Tsui andWan Chai. They were later enticed into investing in Loco London Silver trading, resulting in a loss of over 4 million HK dollars(512,820 US dollars).
A total of six men and two women, aged between 24 and 36, were arrested between September 2000 and July 2002 at various locationsin Tsim Sha Tsui and Wan Chai.
After intensive investigations, officers of the Police Commercial Crime Bureau charged the eight arrested persons with conspiracy to defraud on Feb. 19, 2004. They first appeared at District Court on Oct. 13 but one of the defendants, a 36-year-oldman, had absconded.
The remaining seven defendants pleaded guilty to the charges and