The ICAC has arrested eight people in connection with a $190 million tendering racket involving 83 Housing Authority contracts since 1997.
Investigators from the Independent Commission Against Corruption said the scam targeted authority contracts worth a total of $470 million.
They said it involved nine companies supplying metal security grilles for flats that met and decided on a bogus 'lowest bid' before the end of the main contractor's tendering process. The other eight would submit bids higher than the bogus one.
The lowest bid was the normal price inflated by 60 per cent. On completion, the nine companies would share out the surplus after depositing it in the bank accounts of two shelf companies.
ICAC investigators said the 'major owners' of the seven suppliers and an employee of one of the companies were among those arrested. All those detained are suspected to have offered bribes to employees of various main contractors to help in the scam, understood to have started in April 1997. The eight, aged between 39 and 58, were expected to be released on bail last night.
The ICAC investigation began after an allegation that employees from different main contractors were receiving advantages to turn a blind eye to the racket.
Investigations showed that the companies allegedly agreed that when the 'surplus' in the bank accounts reached $4 million, the money would be taken out and shared, the ICAC said.