A TV talk-show host was among four people arrested by the ICAC yesterday in connection with an alleged $515 million land fraud.
Elsie Chan Yik-zee, 31, a former actress now working for Cable TV, was detained with company directors Wong Shiu-wai, 63, Leung Hiu-ling, 39, and Mickey Wong Hing-hang, 37.
The ICAC said the four had conspired with Macau legislator Tommy Chio Ho-cheong, also known as Chan Kai-kit, to defraud the Agricultural Bank of China in Guangdong over a Mai Po land deal.
It said Wong Shiu-wai, Leung and Mickey Wong were directors of investment company Asiagreat, which had bought 20 parcels of land in Mai Po for about $151 million.
Asiagreat had dishonestly 'caused or induced' a company, Peconic, owned by the bank and of which Chio was a director, to buy the land at the 'inflated price' of $515 million, an ICAC statement said. The bank had paid the money to Star Glory - another of its firms - which had then passed on the cash to Asiagreat in return for the land.
The statement said the four had falsely told Peconic the $515 million purchase price was fair. They, Chio and others had then pocketed $364 million - the difference between the purchase price and the true price.