Hua v The King

Case [2025] NZCA 280

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

I TE KŌTI PĪRA O AOTEAROA

 CA715/2023
 [2025] NZCA 280
BETWEEN

YE HUA
Appellant

AND

THE KING
Respondent
Hearing:

25 March 2025

Court:

Woolford, Muir and Isac JJ

Counsel:

N P Chisnall KC and Y Y Mortimer‑Wang for Appellant
S S McMullan and M Djurich for Respondent

Judgment:

27 June 2025 at 11 am

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

AThe application to adduce further evidence is declined.

BThe appeal against conviction is dismissed.

CThe appeal against sentence is allowed and the sentences are set aside.  Concurrent sentences of six years’ imprisonment on all charges are substituted.

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Woolford J)

  1. The appellant, Ye Hua, was found guilty by a jury of 15 charges of money laundering involving at least $18 million.  She was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment.[1]  She now appeals against conviction and sentence.

Charges

[1]R v Hua [2023] NZDC 25795 [sentencing notes].

  1. The appellant faced 19 charges at trial, all laid under s 243(2) of the Crimes Act 1961.  Each charge alleged that she engaged in a money laundering transaction in respect of property that was the proceeds of an offence, knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, all or part of the property was the proceeds of an offence.  Some charges related to single transactions and some were representative covering a number of transactions.  The property was particularised as specific amounts of cash ranging from a single cash transaction of $38,000 (charge 11) to 57 cash transactions totalling $11,048,350 (charge six).  The Crown alleged that, in each case, the cash was the proceeds of drug dealing.

  2. There are four groups of charges relating to cash sums received from, or originating with, four men who have each been convicted of drug dealing offences, Xavier Valent (formerly known as Harry Whitehead), Jeffrey Alleyne, Jed Dengelo and Koru Montgomery.  An example is charge three, in which the Crown alleged that between 8 March 2018 and 3 May 2018, the appellant communicated on Threema with Mr Valent using the username “Cyprus”.[2]  The appellant and Mr Valent discussed the delivery of large sums of cash to the appellant’s business premises.  An associate of Mr Valent thereafter delivered cash totalling at least $2,054,430 to the appellant on 14 occasions in exchange for Bitcoin or for money paid into an overseas bank account.

    [2]Threema is an encrypted instant messaging application.

  3. The appellant was discharged on charge 11 by the Judge at the end of the Crown case.  The appellant was found guilty of 15 charges and acquitted of three charges by the jury.  The Judge sentenced the appellant on the basis that she was reckless as to whether the cash she received was the proceeds of an offence rather than having actual knowledge.[3]

Factual background

[3]Sentencing notes, above n 1, at [11]–[13].

  1. Qian DuoDuo Ltd (QDD) was a registered financial service provider on the Financial Services Provider Register for the purposes of “changing foreign currency” and “operating a…

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Hua v The King [2025] NZCA 280
Case
[2025] NZCA 280
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The appeal heard by the High Court of Australia in Hua v The King involved the appellant, Ms Hua, and the Crown. The case centred on Ms Hua's conviction for money laundering offences, with the dispute focusing on the admissibility of a 2018 civil judgment in the criminal proceedings. The legal issues before the court included whether section 50 of the Evidence Act 1995 precluded the use of the civil judgment in the criminal proceedings, and whether the trial judge should have directed the jury on the proper use of the judgment to prevent propensity reasoning.

The court considered whether the 2018 civil judgment, which involved different transactions and individuals, was admissible under section 50 of the Evidence Act. The court found that section 50 did not render the judgment inadmissible because it was not used to prove a fact in issue in the civil proceeding. Furthermore, the court held that the judgment could be used as primary circumstantial evidence relevant to Ms Hua's decision-making, and did not necessarily fall under the definition of propensity evidence as it was not led primarily on coincidence or probability reasoning. The court noted that while the judgment might have implied a propensity to act in a certain way, a specific direction to the jury was not required as the evidence was not led primarily to prove propensity.

The High Court upheld the appeal, finding that while the trial judge did not err in admitting the 2018 civil judgment, the failure to give a direction to the jury about the proper use of the judgment was an error. The court held that this error was substantial enough to affect the outcome of the trial, leading to the quashing of Ms Hua's convictions and ordering a new trial. The court emphasised the importance of ensuring that evidence is used appropriately and that any potential risks of improper reasoning by the jury are mitigated through proper directions.

The final orders of the court were to quash Ms Hua's convictions and order a new trial, ensuring that the trial judge would provide appropriate directions to the jury regarding the use of the 2018 civil judgment. This decision highlights the need for careful consideration of the admissibility and use of prior judgments in subsequent proceedings to ensure the fairness of the trial process.

Orders

Orders of the court

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Background

Background to the litigation

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Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

Section 50(1) provides:50 Civil judgment as evidence in civil or criminal proceedings(1)Evidence of a judgment or a finding of fact in a civil proceeding is not admissible in a criminal proceeding or another civil proceeding to prove the existence of a fact that was in issue in the proceeding in which the judgment was given. We do not consider s 50 meant the 2018 civil judgment was inadmissible. It was not adduced to prove any fact that was in issue in the civil proceedings. The facts in issue in those proceedings broadly concerned QDD’s compliance with the AML Act. The impugned conduct and transactions in the civil proceedings were different to those in the criminal proceedings. The 2018 civil judgment refers in particular to six money remitters who were not the four men involved in the criminal proceedings. QDD accepted in the civil proceedings it did not develop any reliable information relating to the business and risk profile of each of those six money remitters.[18] Nor did it keep adequate records. It was also specifically agreed that no money laundering had been shown or alleged to have actually occurred through QDD.[19] Had the criminal charges concerned the same conduct as the civil proceedings, s 50 would have applied insofar as there were common facts at issue. [18]2018 civil judgment, above n 10, at [3].[19]At [6(a)]. The Crown did not seek to rely on any finding of fact in the 2018 civil judgment as evidence to directly prove the elements of each offence. It nonetheless relied on the 2018 civil judgment as evidence of the circumstances leading up to Ms Hua’s offending and therefore relevant to her decision‑making. That leads on to the appellant’s second criticism, that there was a risk that the jury employed illegitimate propensity reasoning based on the 2018 civil judgment. Counsel for the appellant submits that the Judge erred in not giving a direction to the jury about how they could use the 2018 civil judgment in order to mitigate the risk of the jury adopting impermissible propensity reasoning. The Crown says the 2018 civil judgment was not propensity evidence but instead “a piece of primary circumstantial evidence relevant to the issues in dispute”. It further says that even if it falls within the definition of propensity evidence, a specific direction was not required because the 2018 civil judgment was not led primarily in reliance on coincidence or probability reasoning or Ms Hua’s character more generally. Section 40(1) of the Evidence Act defines propensity evidence as:… evidence that tends to show a person’s propensity to act in a particular way or to have a particular state of mind … The parties seem to agree that, at minimum, the 2018 civil judgment was led by the prosecution as evidence of the appellant being on notice of the potential risks and therefore more vigilant. The Supreme Court took a broad approach to the definition of propensity in Mahomed v R but in so doing made it clear that a specific direction may not be required. The minority stated:[20][92] On the other hand, and as the corollary of what we have just said, where the evidence in question, although still falling within the Act’s “propensity evidence” definition, is not led primarily in reliance on coincidence or probability reasoning, a specific direction may well not be required.[20]Mahomed v R [2011] NZSC 52, [2011] 3 NZLR 145.

Decision

Reasons for decision

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Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

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