A banker who used forged documents to move assets worth millions of dollars from a client's account was jailed yesterday for four years and eight months.
Choi Yuet-yan, 45, had pleaded guilty in District Court to seven charges, including dealing with the proceeds of an indictable offence and using a false instrument.
Choi was an employee of ING Asia Private Bank when she moved HK$500,000 and bonds worth 50 million yen (HK$4.82 million) from a client's account to help her husband and brother-in-law, the court heard.
Choi had known the client, a 63-year-old retired woman, since 2000. In 2007 the client opened an investment account at the bank and Choi became her relationship manager.
A number of documents that the client appeared to have signed were in fact never signed by her. These included a letter authorising the transfer of HK$500,000 to a firm, a letter ordering the transfer of bonds worth 50 million yen to an account belonging to Choi's brother-in-law, and a consent letter agreeing that a portfolio in the client's account be used as security for trading in the brother-in-law's account. There was also a letter acknowledging a loan of US$1.3 million to be drawn by the brother-in-law.
Because of those documents, prosecutors said, HK$500,000 was transferred to the company, the bonds were transferred to the brother-in-law's account and the portfolio became security for his trading.