Former pro-democracy district councillor Wong Chun-yeung jailed for 45 months for role in phone scams

Former Islands district councillor Wong Chun-yeung has been sentenced to 45 months in prison for his role in a string of phone scam cases in 2023.

Wong, 31 and unemployed, pleaded guilty to seven counts of money laundering at the District Court on Wednesday, Ming Pao reported.

Former Islands district councillor Wong Chun-yeung. Photo: Wong Chun-yeung, via Facebook.

The defendant, also known as Sheep Wong, has been remanded in custody since his arrest in June 2023.

Wong was arrested on June 6, 2023, after turning himself in that day, saying someone had told him to collect money from others.

According to details revealed in court on Wednesday, Wong collected money from people who fell victim to “Guess who I am” phone scams in 2023.

Six elderly victims received calls claiming their family members had been arrested by police and needed bail money. Wong later went in person to collect the money from the victims, totalling HK$590,000.

On Wednesday, Judge Clement Lee cited Wong’s mitigation letters, which said the defendant not only needed to help pay his father’s medical fees but had also incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts before the incident, The Witness reported.

The judge said that while Wong might not know the details of the phone scams, he must have known the elderly residents were being defrauded.

The maximum penalty for money laundering in Hong Kong is 14 years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$5 million.

District Court in Wan Chai. File photo: Hans Tse/HKFP.

Lee granted the prosecution’s application for a one-fifth sentence enhancement.

He handed down the 45-month jail sentence after applying a three-year starting point, calculating the guilty plea discount and the sentence enhancement.

Wong ran as an independent in the District Council elections in 2015 but lost to pro-establishment figure Holden Chow.

In the elections four years later – following the 2019 protests and unrest – Wong defeated the incumbent Chow in a landslide.

Wong was ousted in October 2021 after the government deemed his oath of allegiance to be “invalid.”