Hong Kong Woman Pleads Guilty to Thailand Scam Trafficking Plot
Hong Kong Woman Pleads Guilty to Thailand Scam Trafficking Plot
HONG KONG, 30 June 2026 — A Hong Kong beautician has pleaded guilty to fraud after admitting she lured two women to Thailand before they were trafficked to a Chinese-run scam compound in neighbouring Myanmar in December 2024.
Poon Sum-yi, 33, entered the guilty plea at Hong Kong’s District Court on Friday. Prosecutors said she deceived the victims by offering free flights and accommodation while promising they would be paid for transporting 48 million baht. Instead, the women were taken through Thailand and sold to a scam compound in Myanmar for US$54,000.
The court heard that unemployed Peng Xinying and part-time model Liu Bingbing were initially invited by Poon to travel to either Japan or Canada. After she offered to cover all travel expenses, the women agreed to join the trip.
On 27 December 2024, Poon informed the pair that she had booked flights to Thailand departing that evening and claimed they would return the following night. Less than three hours before departure, she met one of the victims in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district and deleted all text messages from the victim’s mobile phone.
After arriving in Bangkok at about 11pm, the women entered a white vehicle believing they were being taken to their hotel. By the following morning, they realised they were instead being driven north towards Chiang Mai. Poon, who had claimed she would take a later flight, never travelled to Thailand.
The victims were later taken to the Thai-Myanmar border, where armed men confiscated their belongings before forcing them across a river into Myanmar. They were transported to a Chinese-run scam compound and told they had been sold.
According to prosecutors, a Chinese man known as “rabbit chief” demanded either a US$500,000 ransom or that the women work for the scam syndicate by defrauding wealthy overseas Chinese of the same amount. After learning that relatives were searching for them online, he later agreed to release the pair for US$28,000 each.
The victims contacted their families, who paid more than HK$585,000 in total to secure their release. Both women were freed on 8 January 2025 and returned to Hong Kong three days later.
The Bangkok Post reported that Judge Adriana Noelle Tse Ching adjourned sentencing until 29 September pending a Court of Appeal ruling in a similar case. Poon, who has been denied bail since being charged in January 2025, remains in custody. Fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years under Hong Kong law, although District Court sentences are capped at seven years.
