A tax advisor in Asia has been convicted of charges including theft and fraud by the High Court in Hong Kong, a report said.

A UK tax consultant, Deborah Annells, has been convicted of 47 charges of theft, fraud, and possession of a false instrument by a Hong Hong court, according to the HowardWinnReports.com website.

Her conviction involved stealing from four clients a total of HK$30 million ($3.87 million), the High Court heard.

This publication is seeking confirmation of the case; it may update in due course. There was no apparent reference to the matter on the High Court’s website.

Mr Justice Kevin Zervos reportedly said he would hear mitigation from defence counsel Paul Stephenson and sentence Annells on Monday, 11 July. Annells’ guilty plea was not generally expected since she had earlier pleaded not guilty to these charges in a magistrates court several years ago, the report added.

Annells was the founder and chief executive of AzureTax, a company that specialised in arranging the tax affairs of expatriates in Hong Kong, which sometimes involved the setting up of trust funds. She was arrested in December 2011 following complaints to the police by a number of her former clients and a former director of her company.

Following her arrest she was remanded on police bail and able to continue her business. She remained on police bail  after pleading not guilty to 56 charges of theft and fraud in November 2013 and February 2014 in Eastern Magistrates Court, the report continued. She was remanded in jail in April 2014 after it was suspected she had used false documents in a court hearing in an attempt to vary the conditions of her bail and to retrieve her passport from the police, so she could travel abroad. In a trial for these offences in 2015 Annells was, as reported in local media, sentenced to four years' jail time for charges that included fraud, perverting the course of justice and possessing a false instrument.