A developer mortgaged non-existent village houses to obtain more than $25 million in loans from a financial institution with the help of the firm's manager and an inspector from the Lands Department, a court heard yesterday.
Fung Ping-yan, 49, had offered bribes of up to $10 million to a manager of AIG Finance (HK) Ltd and several hundred thousand to a lands inspector in the past decade, the District Court was told. In return, the AIG manager helped to approve loan applications, while the lands inspector supplied Fung with documents purportedly issued by the Lands Department, the court heard.
Fung pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to offer an advantage to an agent, two of conspiracy to offer an advantage to a public servant and one of conspiracy to defraud.
Prosecutor Eddie Sean said Fung, a director and shareholder of Endenne Development Limited and Busy World Development Limited, came to know the AIG manager and the lands inspector in the 1980s. The two firms were set up for property investment in Yuen Long and Pat Heung area.
'Between 1990 and 1999, the defendant applied for a number of loans exceeding $25.4 million from AIG by purportedly pledging six village houses in the Yuen Long and Pat Heung area as security for the loans,' Mr Sean said. 'In late 2000 . . . upon inspection and re-valuations, AIG discovered that four out of the six village houses pledged to it by the defendant as security for the loans did not exist.'
Mr Sean said the AIG manager was now outside Hong Kong, while the lands inspector, who retired in 1999, was arrested but had not yet been charged. Judge Fergal Sweeney adjourned sentencing to December 23.
