Josiah Wong

Barrister-at-Law

  • B.A. The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • LLB. The University of Auckland
  • Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand
  • Barrister of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia
  • Fluent speaker of English, Cantonese and Mandarin

Josiah has years of experience handling criminal investigations and prosecutions as well as pleading in criminal, civil and appeals.  For more than three decades Josiah has, either as prosecutor or as defence counsel, handled extradition cases (multi-jurisdictions) related to major Interpol Red Notices, which involve drug trafficking, bribery and corruption, bank fraud, embezzlement of funds, illegal fundraising or money laundering in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.   Here are some of the cases he has handled:

  • In 1991 America’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided a warehouse in Hayward, San Francisco and seized US$3 billion worth of heroin, a record drug haul in America to this date. The US then issued a Red Notice through the Interpol for the arrest of those concerned.

DEA then worked with FBI and Interpol to go on a global manhunt for the suspects involved, which led them to New Zealand where a suspect was arrested in Auckland in 2000. Proceedings were then instituted with application made to the New Zealand Government for the suspect to be extradited to America for trial.

Once taking on the case, Josiah set on an evidence gathering mission to Hong Kong and Australia, and subsequently to a number of states in the United States where he had clandestine meetings with former FBI Special Agents, the federal prosecutor and informants concerned—for three years the highly complex case had gone through a number of hearings in the courts of New Zealand and New York, US before the US Federal Government agreed to drop all serious drug charges.

  • Josiah's client had been in the sight of the Chinese Government when it, alleging him of embezzling public funds from China and escaping to New Zealand, issued a Red Notice against him through Interpol; as a result of which The Department of Internal Affairs of New Zealand had for a number of years declined his and his family’s application for citizenship.

After taking on the case, Josiah made representations to the relevant authorities on behalf of his client under international law and the laws of New Zealand, and ultimately succeeded in getting Interpol’s headquarters at Lyon, France to remove the Red Notice issued against his client and securing New Zealand citizenship for him and his family.

  • He claimed victory for his client, a well-known New Zealand financial group, in the High Court of New Zealand in an 8-year long, also the country’s longest running, civil case, that involved financial and taxation legislations, foreign exchange control regulations and banking practices relating to Chinese businesses, underground banks operating between China and Hong Kong, and matters about the authenticity of investment migrant applications and other commercial documents within the immigration file of New Zealand.