Machine trader jailed for fraud, bribery
A prominent trader of textile machines has been jailed for 25 months for issuing invoices which inflated the price of machinery sold to mainland customers and by which he obtained loans from a bank of more than Euro27 million (HK$272.12 million).
Henry Chee Hoi-suen, 65, owner and director of Motionning Industrial Company was convicted after trial on 13 counts of conspiracy to defraud and one of bribery.
His company manager, Raymond Yu Man-chiu, 46, who was convicted on 13 charges of conspiracy to defraud, was jailed for 24 months.
Motionning was a dealer for Promatech, an Italian manufacturer of textile machines, with a dealership in Guangdong province.
Between May 2004 and June 2007, the company referred 13 mainland buyers to DBS for loans, overstating machinery prices.
As a result, Motionning received loans by way of letters of credit totalling Euro27 million.
During that time, Chee also offered Euro22,900 to Lucio Berbenni, a Promatech technical area manager, as a reward for assisting Motionning's textile machine sales.
Berbenni, 52, was also charged by the ICAC with one count of agent accepting an advantage.
In September 2008, he failed to appear in Eastern Magistracy and a warrant for his arrest was issued.
