Updated at 7.08pm: A chairman of an investment company and a bank's branch senior manager were among 18 people arrested last week over an alleged $1.8 billion credit scam, the ICAC said on Monday.
The chairman had allegedly offered bribes to senior bank officers for increasing credit limits and granting sizeable credit facilities to the company despite adverse appraisals on its financial status by the bank's credit department.
The bank allegedly approved a total of 25 Letters of Credit applied by the company and its subsidiaries, purportedly for the purchase of $225 million worth copper and aluminium between November 1998 and April 1999. The transactions were bogus, The Independent Commission Against Corruption said.
Benefiting companies were said to have remitted the funds to the investment company and its subsidiaries' accounts on receiving the L/C payments which was in turn used to settle outstanding loans the company owned to the bank, with the knowledge of bank officers.
The total credit facilities eventually extended to the company amounted to $1.872 billion.
All the people arrested in operation ''Pacifier'' have been released on bail and inquiries are continuing.
