In two separate cases, the District Court has jailed two men, aged 42 and 29, for 28 months for money laundering.

The 42-year-old is a Dutch company director specialising in art products sales. He made false payment instructions to a Dutch bank and deceived it into transferring money to his company in early 2008.

He arrived in Hong Kong last June, established a shell company and transferred all the deceived money totalling about 378,000 euros from the Netherlands to the company and his personal account in Hong Kong.

He was arrested last September when he was about to leave Hong Kong.

Lucky draw scam

In the second case, the court heard that in August 2008, a man alleging to be with a local travel company called overseas victims, claiming they had won $1.5 million in lucky draws.

To receive the prizes, they had to deposit advance fees from $30,000 to $150,000 into designated bank accounts. Some deposited the required fees but later felt suspicious and reported the case to Police.

The defendant was arrested in Mong Kok on September 10 last year. He admitted he met a foreign man overseas who asked him to help deal with some money transfer sand promised to give him $50,000 as reward.

He was charged with dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence.