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Adam Luck

CARRIAN, AN empire that encompassed shipping, insurance and tourism, captured the spirit of the 1980s - Greed is Good - with such chutzpah that even Wall Street's arch-capitalist Gordon Gecko would be rendered speechless.

But this is no work of fiction. It's fact, it's Hong Kong and the ramifications can still be felt today - and not just in the SAR. Malaysian princes and politicians, blue-chip British companies and the territory's banks all take bows in Carrian: Robed Men Of Justice.

With its publication on CD-ROM in August, Hector Lee has compiled the first full account of one of the world's greatest corporate frauds.

For 36-year-old Lee, the tale is fixed in his own lifetime and experiences. Reflecting on his schooldays, Lee says: 'I was attracted to it [Carrian] because [John] Wimbush's son was in the year above me. I was aware of the scandal as it unfolded. It left a tremendous impression on me.'

In 1983, Wimbush, who advised Carrian's founder and was implicated in a notorious property deal, was discovered in a swimming pool with a rope attached to his neck. The rope, in turn, was attached to a 22-kilogram concrete manhole cover.

The police labelled his death a suicide. It is not the only death attached to Carrian and nor is it the only aspect that does not quite add up.

Carrian, for the uninitiated, refers to the conglomerate that came from nowhere, swallowed HK$7.8 billion and then, just as quickly, disappeared.

The central figure in all this was George Tan Soon-gin, a businessman who arrived from Singapore in 1972 on a three-month visa. His empire, Carrian, grew out of an obscure pest-control company and progressed into one of the most decadent and brazen scams the world has ever witnessed.

In 1979, Tan launched a series of astounding property deals that left the business world breathless and most of the press open-mouthed in adoration.

But the economic miracle was simply a carousel of high-profile property and share deals that, in reality, never went anywhere. No money really changed hands.

Tan used a complex web of shelf and offshore companies to give the impression that Carrian was highly profitable.

Incredibly, the Hong Kong business community fell for it.

By the time the police, auditors, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and hordes of lawyers arrived, Carrian's cupboard was as good as empty. The money that had been used to prop up this rapidly expanding empire came from a host of banks, but the bulk was from Bank Bumiputra. The institution, set up by the Malaysian government to support native Malays, was bankrupted in the scandal's aftermath.

In a territory the size of Hong Kong, Tan's actions left few people untouched. Carrian ruined dozens of careers, shamed many Hong Kong institutions, caused one of Malaysia's greatest scandals and cost countless more billions of dollars in legal costs.

Lee is emphatic. 'The purpose of the book was to illustrate the devastating effects of corruption. That is what motivated me to write this.'

A British national, Lee is the product of parents who left Macau for Hong Kong, then Britain and Kenya. He studied economics at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, followed by an MBA at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, before qualifying as a chartered accountant. After working for various blue-chip accountancy firms, Lee, who had returned to Hong Kong in the early 1990s, turned from gamekeeper to poacher. He gave up his job in 1997 and embarked on producing his first book.

'I was fortunate in that I had saved up a bit of money. I couldn't have done this book part-time. My approach to it was simple: persuade the people at the top of the chain to talk and then the rest would follow. Sometimes I felt like a diplomat but it was worth the patience,' he says.

As an enthusiastic amateur historian, Lee relied on primary sources. Police, ICAC investigators, lawyers, accountants, bankers and crooks all responded to his advances.

When he joined publishers Thorntonreed International in 1999, Lee, who now handles their corporate development, had almost completed the book. 'It was a coincidence I joined them and they agreed to publish it. I had showed them the draft and they liked it. I didn't need to show it to anyone else.'

His patient, forensic approach becomes apparent as one reads Carrian and Lee employs it with a vengeance. The sight of pedigree snouts tucking into the Carrian trough is not pretty. The same could be said, unfortunately, for the book's editing. It sprawls too wide in its bid to set the scene and would have benefited from some serious pruning.

Still, such is the quality of the story that one should be able to forgive its quantity.

Well-spoken, bespectacled, immaculately dressed and intense, Lee would not look out of place poring over the books in the ICAC building late at night. It is appropriate then that the commission should lie at the heart of the story. Of the main players who were prosecuted, most were convicted only after years of legal warfare and constant setbacks for the authorities.

Reflecting on the rewards of persistence, Lee says: 'The fact is they [the defendants] were nailed. In other jurisdictions they would have walked free.

'It's an indication of the qualities of the ICAC. It took so many years but they got their men in the end. Without them this would have collapsed.'

The days of Tan's empire were already numbered when, in 1983, an interfering Malaysian bank trouble-shooter was murdered in the plush Regent Hotel. Within days Carrian was little more than carrion; the corporate structure had been picked clean.

Lee says: 'That was what attracted me to write this book in the first place: the arrogance of these people and the fact that they had got away with it. Don't forget it took three trials to get Tan. They really thought they could get away with it.'

They nearly did. The initial trial went for 18 months before the judge ruled there was no case to answer. Lee says: 'No one really understood the reasons given.'

Justice Dennis Barker, who apparently spent most of the trial drunk, later died in a mysterious car crash in Cyprus. Tan was eventually jailed in 1996. A supporting cast, including bankers Paul Kiang, Lorrain Osman, Hashim Shamsuddin, Rais Saniman and Stuart Turner also met their match in the courts, eventually. Lee believes the lessons are manifest: keep commercial fraud trials simple and keep the documentary evidence on a tight leash.

For Lee, the rewards have been tangible. 'I wanted to make my own mark on the world and I think I've achieved that with this book. Will I write another? I would have to be really interested and let's face it, it would have to go some to beat Carrian.'

Carrian: Robed Men Of Justice can be ordered at www.carrian.org for $270.



Secrets and bribes