Siblings jailed for TV quiz bribery that saw them win HK$350,000 in gameshow
Brother and sister offer Now TV employee HK$46,000 for information to help them fraudulently win money in live game show
A brother and sister have been jailed for offering a bribe of about HK$46,000 to a Now TV engineer in return for tips to win HK$350,000 in a game show.
Fung Kin-fung, 29, and Fung Kwan-wai, 28, pleaded guilty in Eastern Court yesterday to one count of conspiracy to defraud. The elder brother also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to offer an advantage to an agent.
Defence counsel said in mitigation that the sister was encouraged by her boyfriend engineer, Desmond Ho Siu-hung, to join the fraud scheme and that he was the mastermind.
The couple sought to make a quick buck because they wanted to get married and repay credit card loans, lawyer Cindy Lee Shin-man said.
The woman took the rap for Ho when graft-busters arrested her, and all the winnings went to Ho, Lee said. The court did not hear why the engineer was not prosecuted.
"The court has particularly considered that [Kwan-wai] was led to commit a crime mainly by a man she loved deeply," magistrate Joseph To Ho-shing said. "Her behaviour has warranted a jail term for her brother - for which she might not forgive herself for the rest of her life."
To said using fraudulent means to secure winnings in a game show was no different from other fraud, and jailed the brother and sister for four months and 10 months, respectively.