IS HSBC-OWNED HANG SENG BANK LIABLE TO THE PLAINTIFFS IN THE AMERICAN RICO CASE INVOLVING ILLEGALLY-DISCOUNTED CBI PASSPORT SALES IN CHINA?

PHILIPPE MARTINEZ is an officer at MSR MEDIA, and himself one of the party plaintiffs in the RICO case filed in US Federal Court in Florida, involving fraud, money laundering and corruption regarding illegally-discounted CBI passports. In the interview Martinez gave to Lissa Joseph on DBS television, Martinez explained the fraudulent CBI passport scheme. Galaxy's owners ZHANG KAUN, and YING JIN were given USD$3.5bn worth of citizenship & passports from St. Kitts & Nevis and St. Lucia, and that Galaxy sold those citizenships mainly in China and the Middle East. MSR Media will file in Federal Court on August 30, evidence, including the applications and the invoices, proving that Galaxy sold the citizenships for half the legal price, and that the payments were sent by the sales agents and the applicants to HANG SENG BANK, part of the HSBC GROUP. Hang Seng and HSBC failed to confirm that the legal price was fully paid.

A substantial portion of the funds received by Hang Seng were then sent, via Bank of America which is the correspondent bank, to the Bank of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla in Saint Kitts, and to the Bank of St. Lucia in Saint Lucia, which allegedly constitutes money laundering.The total volume of the citizenship contracts given to Galaxy was USD$3.5bn. Martinez further alleged that the RICO conspiracy included St. Lucia's Deputy Prime Minister ERNEST HILAIRE, who facilitated as extraordinary and unjustified amount of citizenships allocated to Galaxy. allegedly, Hilaire is part of the fraud, money laundering and corruption scheme, together with two main local processing agents, imposed by Galaxy, THADDEUS ANTOINE and GEOFFREY DUBOULAY, who received millions of dollars to process applications, under the legal price.

According to Martinez' allegations, Hang Seng Bank and HSBC Group failed to confirm that all payments made by Galaxy were legitimate, that Galaxy's operations in Asia and in Saint Kitts & Nevis and Saint Lucia were proper, this was a violation of their obligations and duties as financial institutions, and that the banks, the sales agents, and the banks in St. Kitts and St. Lucia named above, are liable. MSR, which has in its possession hundreds of the illegal applications and the invoices, was defrauded, as were the people of Saint Kitts & Nevis and the people of Saint Lucia. MSR alleged that it has further evidence of alleged money laundering by Galaxy and Ying Jin.

MSR Media prevailed in court recently. A Federal judge ordered that subpoenas be issued against three American banks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase Bank in the §1782 proceeding, which are expected to reveal further evidence of illegal activities. As a reminder, the existing defendants in the RICO case are : TIMOTHY HARRIS, CARIBBEAN GALAXY REAL ESTATE LIMITED, YING JIN, LES KHAN, DENZEL DOUGLAS, NATIONAL BANK OF ST. KITTS-NEVIS-ANGUILLA, FARON LAWRENCE and McCLAUDE EMMANUEL. Will they be joined by ERNEST ANTOINE, GEOFFREY DEBOULAY, HANG SENG BANK, HSBC, ZHANG KUAN and LORNE THEOPHILUS on August 30, when an amendment to the filing in the RICO case is expected? The gravity and significance of the RICO case will surely have serious legal consequences for the region's correspondent banking system.