Former Hong Kong Cyberport chairman wanted by Vietnam over financial fraud case has not been reappointed to city leader John Lee’s think tank

Vietnamese authorities last year issued arrest warrant for former Cyberport chairman Lee George Lam in connection with country’s biggest financial fraud

Lam given one-year role in Chief Executive’s Policy Unit Expert Group last year, but was not on list of appointments announced on Tuesday

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Lee George Lam was the chairman of Cyberport from 2016 to 2022. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 11:19am, 29 May 2024Updated: 5:26pm, 29 May 2024

A former Hong Kong Cyberport chairman who is wanted by Vietnamese authorities has not been reappointed as a member of the city leader’s think tank.

Lee George Lam was not on the list of appointments announced on Tuesday for the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit Expert Group, after serving a one-year term on the body that city leader John Lee Ka-chiu established in May 2023.

Vietnamese authorities earlier accused Lam of being involved in the country’s largest financial fraud. At the centre of the case is real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was sentenced to death for plundering more than US$12.5 billion from a bank using hundreds of ghost companies.

The fraud also involved embezzlement, bribery and banking regulation violations, according to a Vietnamese court .

The country’s government issued an arrest warrant for Lam, a former board member of Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), in October last year over allegations of “abusing his authority to actively assist Truong My Lan in embezzling money from SCB”.

Lam previously told the Post that the allegations were unfounded and he would contact the country’s authorities to clear up the matter.