The ICAC may have seen the last of a group of defendants jailed last week for their part in the mammoth Guangnan fraud case but half the original suspects remain on the wanted list. Independent Commission Against Corruption chief investigator Brian Chin Tsang-kung said 26 people were still wanted in connection with a plot to cheat several banks out of $1.8 billion under a credit fraud involving bogus transactions with the mainland food conglomerate. He said of the 23 people prosecuted so far, 15 were convicted and were now serving terms ranging from between two and 10 years. Last Tuesday, Tsoi Chak-fai, 45, was jailed for 10 years after being found guilty in the Court of First Instance of 12 counts of conspiracy to defraud. Since December 1998, when the ICAC received a tip-off about fraudulent credit applications, investigators had trawled through more than 800,000 documents in an attempt to piece together the scheme, Mr Chin said, while also contending with witnesses and suspects who had 'disappeared'. 'After the second stage, after we brought the defendants to court, we asked that some of them be remanded,' he said. 'But some of the suspects were able to leave Hong Kong before giving evidence. That is the legal system in Hong Kong. Nobody wants to see that happen.' One of those still on the run is the former chairman of Guangnan (Holdings) Limited and alleged mastermind behind the scheme, Sun Guan. A former officer with the People's Liberation Army, Sun fled to the mainland shortly before news broke that the company's profits were not as healthy as shareholders were led to believe. Mr Chin said despite the fact several companies involved in the scheme were window companies for state-owned mainland firms, ICAC officers had no difficulties in enlisting the help of mainland investigators. During the hunt for further suspects, the team also had to deal with the suicide of a suspect, Yip Hiu-sui, 46, in January 2000. 'That was very regrettable because a person's life is most valuable,' Mr Chin said. Mr Chin said the masterminds used falsely obtained letters of credit to generate cash flow for the company and inflate profit figures for the company, which was Guangdong's biggest supplier of fresh food to the SAR. The scheme often involved trading companies claiming to sell goods to Guangnan subsidiaries. But the goods were often non-existent and the transactions fake. They were able to get away with the scheme by forging documents, Mr Chin said. After the banks released the funds, the money was funnelled back through Guangnan to be used to boost its profit margin and clear debts. Mr Chin was unable to say how many letters of credit were used in the overall scheme, other than that the number was 'huge'. Mr Chin also said the Hong Kong public should appreciate the effort that went into the investigation and 'realise the seriousness and profound effect of corruption and white-collar crime'. sara.bradford@scmp.com
