Hong Kong police arrested two people for fraud and money laundering on Tuesday, alleging their organization had underreported the amount raised by a crowdfunding drive last year.

Police carried out raids at the two branches of Good Neighbourhood North District Church and seized documents and mobile phones. Aside from the two arrests, officers also took away two other men to assist their investigation.

Senior superintendent Chow Cheung-yau said police arrested two women, aged 24 and 37, for fraud and money laundering. The couple who led the church — pastor Roy Chan and his wife — have also been put on the wanted list as they left Hong Kong in October, Chow said.

The church had received around HK$27 million (US$3.5 million) between June 2019 and this September, but put the figure at HK$8.9 million in its public announcement, Chow said. The police suspected that the crowdfunding drive was “cheating the public out of their money using the pretext of religion and supporting young people,” he added.

In 2019, the church was behind the volunteer group “Safeguard Our Generation,” which often appeared at pro-democracy protests to de-escalate conflicts between riot police and the public.

The church organized a crowdfunding drive to support social worker Lau Ka-tung, who was arrested for obstructing a police officer during a demonstration, and later became the first registered social worker to be jailed in relation to the protests. The church later said it managed to raise around HK$700,000 and hired Lau after he was released on bail pending appeal.

Tuesday’s police operation came after reports of the church’s bank accounts being frozen. In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, pastor Chan said that HSBC aided the government’s “political retaliation” against the church.

Chan and four relatives travelled to the U.K. for a holiday and to explore the possibility of opening a branch of the church there, but now feared it would be impossible for him to safely return to Hong Kong, he said in the video.

A church staffer told Apple Daily that its offices in the Kwun Tong and Fanling branches would be temporarily closed as the church could not access its funds. Chan and his wife could not be reached for comment.

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