Conman's ID slip-up earns 2.5 years' jail

A con artist who used different names but the same photo of himself on seven bogus identity cards to secure bank loans was jailed for 2.5 years yesterday.

Dim sum cook Leung Ka-yiu, 33, bought the personal particulars of seven men from a drug addict for $7,000 and visited Shenzhen to get bogus ID cards, the District Court heard.

Leung made 70 loan applications to nine banks in July and August 1998. He even had seven separate telephone lines installed at his Ngau Tau Kok home.

Five applications were successful and Leung secured loans totalling $75,000. However, on August 13, a Dah Sing Bank officer was alerted by the identical photos on two of the ID cards.

Leung pleaded guilty before Deputy Judge Stephen Geiser to one charge of possessing forged ID cards, five of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and five of similar fraudulent attempts.