By Linny Folau
A 60-year-old shop owner, Qiwu Huang, will be sentenced next month for receiving stolen property, including iPhones valued up to $14,000 pa‘anga,
Lord Chief Justice Bishop found him guilty on 11 March at the Supreme Court in Nuku’alofa, after a trial.
On 3 December 2024, the defendant was arraigned and denied the offending that around February to April 2024, he received the electronic devices believed to have been stolen.
The court heard that the person responsible had already pleaded guilty to stealing these items, or some of them, together with a large number of other items.
The defendant runs a general store business in Longolongo from which he also sells mobile telephones and other devices. He has been in business for about 16 years and came to live and work in Tonga as a businessman in 2009.
“Therefore he has significant experience in the world of finance and in the world of retail operations, and he in my view must have known that mobile phones are highly prized commodities in that they are small in volume but of high worth,” stated the judge.
The store keeper was well aware of the danger of stolen goods being passed off as genuine.
“I say that I am satisfied that he was aware of that because he told me that one of his first remarks when the first defendant offered him the phones was that he was not interested in buying stolen goods and it was because the seller told him that the phones were not stolen and that he had brought them from his professional repair shop in New Zealand, that he bought it.
“This suggests to me that this was not someone who was naively accepting the word of a stranger but was initially suspicious and wanted reassurance of what he says about the source of the items.”
The judge said the other significant feature of this case, was that there were three visits to the defendant's premises.
“On the first visit, the first defendant, of course, being a complete stranger to this defendant, was able to sell him an iPhone 13 pro in good condition, as well as other iPhones, for which he paid $8,000. He came back, apparently the following day, and further iPhones were sold. On the third day, six Samsungs were purchased as well as a tablet. All this was done without any paperwork to authenticate the source of the phones. And yet the defendant parted with $13,000 without any such corroboration.
The judge noted that no receipts were tended by the defendant to the seller.
“Now, he must have records as a businessman, if only for the purposes of dealing with the tax authorities. And yet he was unable to produce anything to show that he had nothing to hide about this transaction, that it was all above board and that parting with $13,000 to a complete stranger without any receipt or other indication that the goods were legitimately sourced, strikes me as incomprehensible,” he stated.
“I am satisfied so far as the items to which the defendant himself admits receiving that he received those items believing that they were in fact, stolen, and accordingly, I find him guilty of count two of the indictment.”
The question at trial was whether this defendant, when he received the goods in question, believed that they were stolen.
There were a number of difficulties in this case. It had been impossible to reconcile the various lists of items said to have been stolen. Some were said to have been the possession of Superphone, others were of third parties. There was also ae language difficulty. The defendant is of Chinese descent. He speaks Mandarin and has some knowledge of Tongan, and at the beginning of his evidence the interpreter, assigned to him was unsatisfactory. A new interpreter had to be found.
“I am now satisfied that I have a clear picture of the defendant's case and what he wishes to say, ” the judge stated.
“I am satisfied so far as the items to which the defendant himself admits receiving that he received those items believing that they were in fact, stolen, and accordingly, I find him guilty of count two of the indictment.”
