Background
Yiwei Liu faces trial in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, scheduled to commence 17 August 2026, on charges arising from his alleged role as the Australian principal of an international money laundering syndicate. The Crown alleges that the syndicate recruited straw directors, used their names to open accounts in shell companies, and funnelled approximately $370 million in proceeds from cyber-enabled investment fraud — so-called “pig butchering” schemes — before remitting funds to accounts in China. Liu allegedly held a senior position at Changjiang Currency Exchange, a remittance business, which he is said to have used to give the conduct an appearance of legitimacy. He is charged under s 400.2B(6) of the Criminal Code (Cth) with engaging in conduct in relation to money or property that was proceeds of general crime on two or more occasions, with aggregate value exceeding $10 million (Count 1), together with an alternative count under s 400.3(2B) and a count under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth).
For Count 1, the Crown characterised the accused’s conduct not as a series of discrete transactions but as his general supervision and management of the syndicate’s Australian operations — a “state of affairs” said to have been in force throughout the charge period from approximately March 2021 to October 2023. Liu filed a Notice of Motion on 16 March 2026 seeking to quash Count 1 on the ground that it was not an offence known to the law. He argued that the definition of “engages in conduct” in s 4.1(2) of the Criminal Code — limited to doing an act or omitting to perform an act — excludes states of affairs, which appear only in the broader definition of “conduct” in s 4.1(1), and that the two subsections must be read disjunctively.
The motion was heard across three dates in 2026. Notably, the Crown initially conceded that if the statutory construction issue were resolved in the accused’s favour Count 1 could not stand, but withdrew that concession after serving further disclosure material identifying approximately 170 alleged individual fund transfers totalling about $60.7 million. McGuire J nonetheless determined the motion on the particulars contained in the original Crown Case Statement, reserving issues about the adequacy of particulars and the Crown’s late disclosure for later pre-trial applications.
The Court’s Holding
McGuire J dismissed the Notice of Motion, holding that Count 1 as particularised is an offence known to the law. The court rejected the accused’s submission that ss 4.1(1) and 4.1(2) of the Criminal Code must be read disjunctively. Following the High Court’s decision in Agius v The Queen (2013) 248 CLR 601; [2013] HCA 27, the court held that one may engage in conduct which is a state of affairs: to read the definitions disjunctively would denote a form of conduct incapable of being engaged in, producing an absurd result that the legislature cannot have intended. The court also drew support from the Explanatory Memorandum to the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Economic Disruption) Bill 2020 (Cth), which expressly stated that “engaging in conduct” in the money laundering provisions would include, but is not limited to, the possession of money or other property — itself a recognised state of affairs.
On the “2 or more occasions” element, the court held that an “occasion” is a specific event or point in time during the charge period when the state of affairs was in force, and that the requirement is satisfied when conduct — including a state of affairs — is shown to have continued on at least two such occasions. The court rejected any reading that would confine the element to discrete, independently proved acts or omissions. The court also accepted the Crown’s reliance on s 400.10(1A)’s mistake-of-fact defence, which expressly contemplates conduct that “continued during a period,” as consistent with the offence encompassing a continuing state of affairs.
The accused’s argument that Agius should be confined to conspiracy offences was rejected; the court found no principled basis to limit the High Court’s reasoning to a single offence type. The motion to quash Count 1 was accordingly dismissed. Questions concerning the adequacy of particulars for Counts 1 and 2 and the impact of late disclosure were expressly reserved for subsequent pre-trial determination.
Key Takeaways
- Under the Criminal Code (Cth), “engages in conduct” in a money laundering offence can be satisfied by a state of affairs — such as the ongoing supervision and management of a criminal enterprise — not only by discrete acts or omissions; ss 4.1(1) and 4.1(2) must be read conjunctively.
- Agius v The Queen (2013) 248 CLR 601 is not confined to conspiracy offences; its reasoning that one may engage in conduct which is a state of affairs extends to money laundering charges under s 400.2B(6) and, by implication, to other provisions in the Criminal Code employing similar language.
- The “2 or more occasions” element in s 400.2B(6) requires proof that the relevant conduct (including a continuing state of affairs) existed on at least two distinct occasions during the charge period; it does not require proof of two wholly separate and self-contained acts.
- The Crown may prosecute a money laundering charge on the basis of a supervisory or managerial state of affairs while also relying on specific particularised transactions as additional or alternative evidence of the required occasions.
- A Crown concession made at an early pre-trial hearing may subsequently be withdrawn where new disclosure material alters the evidentiary landscape, provided the accused has an adequate opportunity to respond — though resulting prejudice from late disclosure remains open to challenge.
Why It Matters
This ruling clarifies that Australia’s Commonwealth money laundering framework reaches beyond those who personally conduct individual transactions to those who maintain ongoing supervisory control over a criminal enterprise. By holding that a “state of affairs” — such as organising and directing a syndicate’s operations — can satisfy the “engages in conduct” element of s 400.2B(6), the court significantly expands the potential scope of the most serious money laundering charges to principals and managers who may not personally execute every laundering transaction. This is particularly significant for prosecutions involving complex, multi-participant schemes such as the cyber-fraud and underground banking operations alleged here, where the directing mind of the operation may leave few transactional fingerprints.
For practitioners, the decision confirms that courts will not read the Criminal Code’s conduct definitions in isolation and that penal provisions using “engages in conduct” carry the full breadth of s 4.1 when read as a whole. The trial is scheduled for August 2026, with further pre-trial litigation anticipated on the adequacy of particulars and the significance of the Crown’s late-disclosed transaction evidence — issues that may yet shape the boundaries of what the Crown can prove at trial under Count 1.