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A Filippino visitor was today (June 15) sentenced at Sha Tin Magistrates' Court to nine months' jail for breaching condition of stay and employing persons not lawfully employable.
Tambol Polked Dagdagen Dupagan , 26, who was a visitor setting up business and who employed five Filipino visitors in Hong Kong, pleaded guilty to one count of breach of condition of stay and five counts of being the employer of a person not lawfully employable. He was sentenced to nine months' jail on each charge. The sentences will run concurrently.
Five other defendants, Mr Kenny Kurth Pandosen, 24, Mr Robert Leight Lardizabal, 31, and three female defendants, Agnes Utang Malidom , 23, Narcisa Ngawit Monis, 28, and Elena Lawagan Madkil, 41, all pleaded guilty to a charge of breaching condition of stay and were each sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
Immigration investigators raided an industrial building in Kwai Chung in May. The six defendants were sorting out second-hand shoes at the site. Passport checks revealed that they were all on visitor status.
Dupagan admitted that he was a visitor setting up the recycling business in Hong Kong. He had rented the place to collect the second-hand clothes and shoes for resale in the Philippines. To save labour costs, he recruited the other five defendant from the Philippines at 10,000 to 20,000 pesos per month.
The Immigration Department warned that it was an offence to employ people who were not lawfully employable. The maximum penalty is a fine of $350,000 and imprisonment for three years.
Visitors are not permitted to take up employment in Hong Kong, whether paid or unpaid, or to establish any business without the prior permission of the Director of Immigration. Offenders are liable to prosecution and upon conviction to a maximum fine of $50,000 and two years' jail.
Ends/Thursday, June 15, 2006
Issued at HKT 19:38
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