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Banker duped tycoon's son out of US$2m
A Harvard University  graduate and godson of  Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen  was jailed yesterday for nearly six years for defrauding a member of one of Malaysia's wealthiest families of US$2 million.
Stephen Chik Wai-wan  had succumbed to greed, his counsel told the District Court.
Chik, 45, who was extradited from Germany in January after eight years on the run, pleaded guilty  to using a bogus financial report in 1994 to con a businessman into investing in his firm,  Pacific Asia Group, registered in what was then Western Samoa.
At the time of the fraud he was earning HK$150,000 a month, his counsel, David Boyton, said.
Chik had intended to use the US$2 million to fast-track his career and pursue his dream of starting his own merchant bank, Mr Boyton said. He had intended to repay the money later.
'The defendant was, 14 years ago, young, talented, successful and very ambitious ... He knew the financial institutions would not lend any funds to him in his own right. So he took the US$2 million.'
However, within two years he had either spent or lost the entire sum.
The court heard that Chik had met his victim, Yaw Chee Siew,  in mid-1994. He duped Mr Yaw by  showing him a report  on Pacific Asia's finances that was purportedly prepared by accountancy firm Moore Stephens.
Mr Yaw is a son of Malaysian timber baron Yaw Teck Seng.  Yaw Chee Ming,  the chief executive officer of Hong Kong-listed Samling Global  and the 24th richest man in Malaysia according to Forbes   magazine, is his brother.
Yaw Chee Siew was an extremely wealthy businessman with many interests in Hong Kong and elsewhere, and the loss of US$2 million had had little effect on his personal wealth, the court was told.
However, in sentencing Chik to five years and nine months in jail,  Deputy District Court Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong  said that was not the point. The bogus report  involved an international accountancy firm and thus affected public confidence, and Hong Kong's image as an international financial centre must be protected.
Deputy Judge Yau believed the financial report must have looked genuine to deceive Yaw, who, he said, must have been well versed in the business world.
Having paid  the US$2 million, Mr Yaw and associates  were  named directors of the company.
However, they were removed in February 1997 without ever having seen the company's books or an accounting of how the money was being used.
The prosecution said one of Chik's employees  came across the purported Moore Stephens report at work and was suspicious.
He discovered it had been forged when he asked the accountancy firm about it. He   confronted Chik, who appeared disturbed but made no admission about the document's authenticity. Mr  Boyton told the court that after graduating from Harvard in 1987 with a degree in economics Chik had worked on Wall Street for three years with investment bank Lehman Brothers, where he specialised in corporate finance and leveraged buyouts.
But after returning to Hong Kong, he had fallen from grace.
Chik, who until recently worked as a financial consultant in Beijing, was intercepted entering Germany in November  on a business trip and did not challenge the extradition proceedings against him.
Mr Boyton said Chik had turned to Beijing and the United States in an attempt  to change his luck and to move away from his old life after his first marriage failed in 2000. But he had not fled Hong Kong to avoid being arrested.
Chik had been travelling in and out of Hong Kong constantly for the past 14 years, Mr Boyton said.
A Hong Kong-based source earlier confirmed  that Chik  was Mr Tsang's godson.



Nearly 6 years' jail for Tsang godson