A long-term business partner of former executive councillor Allen Lee Peng-fei acquired phoney paperwork from an American diploma mill which sold degrees to Hongkongers, a South China Morning Post investigation has found.
Alfred Kwok Tai-wai, chief executive of Jada Electronics, of which Mr Lee is chairman, told the Post he obtained a diploma from the bogus West Coast Institute of Management & Technology (WCIMT) 'years ago'.
Mr Kwok said he thought the institution was genuine when he applied for it. 'When I found out it was not a genuine one, I was quite upset and therefore I just ignored [the diploma] and scrapped it right afterwards,' he said in an e-mail. He declined a face-to-face interview.
But Mr Lee said his business partner for more than two decades would never knowingly seek fake academic credentials. 'He doesn't need to use such things,' said Mr Lee, a former delegate to the National People's Congress and founding chairman of the Liberal Party. 'He's been my partner for so many years and I've always trusted this person.'
Mr Kwok and another 23 Hongkongers have been listed among thousands who have paid for or inquired about products of the diploma mill based in Spokane, in the American state of Washington. Two local academics have also admitted to the Post that they bought fake certificates.
Mr Kwok described his decision to seek a degree from WCIMT as a mistake. 'To me, this is a mistake I've made one time and by now it is all over,' he said.
American federal investigators probed into the diploma mill in 2005. Last month, The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane published over 9,000 names after it said it obtained the federal investigators' list of alleged buyers.