Graft investigator suspicious over Macau land deal
Witness in trial of Joseph Lau, Steven Lo points to tycoons' names in jailed official's notebook
The name of real estate agent Jones Lang LaSalle and words such as "airport" appeared in a notebook belonging to jailed former public works chief Ao Man-long as early as a year before tenders for land near Macau's airport actually opened, Macau's Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
Anti-corruption investigator Lee Tung-leung said he found it suspicious that those words appeared in Ao's notebooks in 2004 as the idea of selling the land - at the centre of a corruption trial involving two Hong Kong tycoons - was not mentioned by owners of the land until 2005.
Lee, from the Commission Against Corruption of Macau, was giving evidence against businessmen Joseph Lau Luen-hung and Steven Lo Kit-sing, who are accused of giving a HK$20 million bribe to Ao to secure the five plots near the Macau airport for luxury residential project La Scala.
Lau, chairman of developer Chinese Estates, and Lo, chairman of BMA Investment, each face one charge of bribery and one of money laundering.
Lo's company Moon Ocean - later sold to Lau - won the tender through Jones Lang LaSalle in a closed bid in 2005.
In his evidence yesterday, Lee said one of the references in Ao's notebook, written in 2005, included Lau's name with an arrow pointing to the words "land tender".
The notebook also referred to a meeting Ao held with Lau and Lo at a restaurant on June 22 the same year, a week after the 10-day tender period opened.
