The Hong Kong government is doing everything it can to suppress the pro-democracy camp, Reuters reported exclusively on the 26th, the police asked banks for bank account records of at least six pro-democracy activists who were arrested recently on suspicion of violating Hong Kong’s national security law, and asked for specific transaction information. The banks asked to provide information include HSBC and its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank, Citigroup’s Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank.
The six people include Liu Ying-hong, Zou Jiacheng. Zou Jiacheng said police obtained his financial records from Citibank, Hang Seng Bank and HSBC’s mobile payment service PayMe, asking each of the three accounts the source of each of the funds, each of these funds up to 100,000 Hong Kong dollars; police also confiscated his relevant bank credit cards, sign-up financial cards.
Liu Ying-hong said the police showed him his account statement in Hang Seng, asking him about “dozens” of transactions before the democratic primary election last year; he said the account was used for crowdfunding in the primary election. Other arrested people anonymously told Reuters that the police also showed their bank account information when questioning them, one of the banks is Standard Chartered Bank.
Reuters quoted the six as saying that the incident shows that the Hong Kong government is doing everything it can to investigate suspected violators of Hong Kong’s national security laws; the police’s move may also give multinational banks, which are already in a difficult position because of the U.S. and China’s confrontation over Hong Kong, a bigger headache.
A senior executive at a major Hong Kong retail bank with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the number of police inquiries into customers’ financial records has more than doubled over the past six months, with the number of people affected remaining in double digits overall, and that the increase in inquiries is due to requests for information on pro-democracy activists.
The banks named declined to comment on individual customer matters. Police representatives also declined to comment on why they wanted the financial information of these pro-democracy activists, citing the non-disclosure of details of the investigation. A spokesman for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the banking authority, said “financial institutions are expected to cooperate with (law enforcement) on investigations and enforcement actions.”
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