By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter of 
Ye "Cathay" Hua was sent to prison for seven and a half years after a jury found her guilty of 15 money laundering charges. That has now been reduced to six years. Photo: NZ Herald / Jason Oxenham
A convicted money launderer repeatedly complained to international drug kingpin Xavier Valent that cash her staff were handling was wet, sticky and covered with white powder.
"I am scared of drug money," Ye "Cathay" Hua told Valent in a text message.
"Our staff sick of counting wet money ... are you sure not drug money?" asked Hua, who at the time owned a legitimate money-handling business turning over tens of millions of dollars a year.
The messages were sent to Valent, the former Auckland Grammar student whose international drugs empire has been described as making him a modern-day Mr Asia.
He is now serving a life sentence for the importation and supply of methamphetamine and other Class A and B drugs.
Hua warned Valent, also known as Harry Whitehead, she was worried police would search her premises if the money he was sending was linked to drug dealing.
She asked the drug smuggler for a $100,000 deposit to offset that risk. He did not meet that request, but Hua went ahead and processed the transaction anyway.
Hua was subsequently found guilty after a jury trial of 15 money laundering offences involving $18 million, which she processed on behalf of Valent and three other convicted drug dealers.
Hua appeals convictions and sentence
She was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in 2023, but took an appeal against both that sentence and her convictions to the Court of Appeal.
The appeal court upheld the convictions but, in a decision released on Friday, reduced her sentence to six years in jail.
The appeal court judges said her offending was tempered by the fact Hua did not know for sure the cash was drug money, and she had not made unduly large profits by handling it.
The court was told that the $18m was laundered within the context of her registered financial services business, Quian Duo Duo (QDD), which turned over $357m between 2017 and 2020.
About $70m of those transactions were in cash.
"While we agree that the period of the offending and the amount of money laundered are serious aggravating factors, the lack of actual knowledge of the source of the cash and the lack of any unusual profits temper the gravity of the offending," the Court of Appeal decision said.
"Another factor tempering the gravity of the offending is the lack of any involvement in the crimes committed by those utilising the appellant's money remittance business."
Although QDD was a registered financial services provider, it had a history of non-compliance with anti-money laundering legislation.
In addition to the criminal case against Cathay Hua, the Department of Internal Affairs has recently prosecuted the company for failing to report over $19m worth of transactions between New Zealand and China.
It is facing a fine of $1.25m.
It was fined $356,000 for similar offending in 2018.
Although Hua never met Valent face-to-face, communications between the money launderer and the drug-smuggler were cited in evidence that she was "reckless" about where the cash was coming from.
At one point, she told him not to send any money on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday the following week, because she was due to have an on-site inspection by the Department of Internal Affairs on those days.
On another occasion, vacuum-packed white powder was left at QDD by a person who dropped off the cash.
Hua took a photograph of the powder and sent it to Valent, who replied that it was lithium.
Hua messaged back to him: "As long as not drug".
Valent was found guilty in 2023 of 86 charges including the importation, manufacture, supply and possession for supply of methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and ephedrine.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 10 years - one of the stiffest sentences for drug trafficking and of a level normally handed down to people convicted of murder.
The drugs involved amounted to more than 200kg and Valent ran his operation so tightly that he subjected his syndicate members to lie detector tests if he suspected they were stealing drugs or money.
- This story was first published by NZ Herald
