THE Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) is investigating companies linked to a US$500 million plan aimed at turning Haitan Island in the Taiwan Straits into a ''second Hong Kong''. The plan was announced amid great publicity in February last year by FADB Jimin (Holdings), a Hong Kong company 70 per cent owned by First Asia Development Bank, which is registered in the tax haven of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. The firm claimed to be building a four-kilometre bridge to Haitan for $100 million using capital largely raised in Taiwan, with an additional $400 million being used for industrial and tourism development on the islands, including a hotel, airport, harbour and roads. The bridge would be one of the longest in Asia, and would be completed in 1996, said company officials at the time of the announcement. Company officials also told reporters at the project's unveiling that First Asia Development Bank had total assets of some $1.5 billion. A CCB spokesman confirmed that an investigation into First Asia Development Bank companies based in Hong Kong was under way, but refused to discuss its nature, describing it only as ''a long and complicated enquiry''. An employee at the firm's office said there were no managers in Hong Kong available for comment. However, Jeff Gardener, a company employee, said of the Haitan project: ''We are not doing that any more.'' Sources said the company's offices on the 48th floor of Central Plaza, Wan Chai, had been visited by CCB officers, and subsequently the FADB signboard had been removed. However, the offices remain staffed, and are home to at least two other FADB companies. According to records filed with the Registrar of Companies, at the time of the announcement FADB Jimin (Holdings) had an allotted and paid-up share capital of just HK$10,000. In June last year, FADB Jimin (Holdings) changed its name to FADB Properties Development, according to company records. First Asia Development Bank is not a registered Hong Kong institution and is therefore forbidden to use the word ''bank'' for any of its operations in the territory.