The Court of Second Instance (TSI) has overturned a ruling by a lower court to punish the person who attempted to exchange counterfeit money for chips at a casino.
The TSI revealed that in 2020, the accused approached a casino cage trying to exchange a batch of counterfeit Hong Kong banknotes in denominations of HKD1,000, for chips. The cage staff refused the request upon realizing the money was counterfeit.
According to the court, the counterfeit money had “money for practice” printed in Chinese on them. Such banknotes are used in mainland China to train bank tellers.
The accused was charged with fraud of a relatively large sum, and was sentenced to a year in prison. This decision was overturned on appeal at the TSI.
The ground of appeal was under Clause 3, Article 22 of the Penal Code, which provides that when the criminal method is apparently unfeasible, or the subject of violation is nonexistent, the crime will be considered impractical or incomplete, and no punishment will be imposed.
The court emphasized that any literate adult should have realized the money was counterfeit. Based on this, the court found in favor of appeal and acquitted the appellant. AL
