Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has
charged director and shareholder of Win Victory Holdings Ltd. Mo
Yuk-ping (Sandy Mo) with fraud amounting to millions of dollars. Mo
was appeared at the Eastern Magistracy at 9:30 Thursday
morning.
Mo, 42, was released on bail earlier this week after being
formally charged with 23 counts of conspiracy to defraud, according
to a government press release Wednesday.
The charges allege Mo conspired to commit fraud by causing Hong
Kong Nam Hoi Enterprise Ltd. to apply to the banks for a total of
23 letters of credit in favor of Win Victory, a trading
company.
To support the applications, between June 2001 and March 2003
they allegedly submitted false documents to the banks that were
purported to indicate business deals between Nam Hoi and Win
Victory. The banks approved the letters of credit and issued a
total of HK$89 million (US$11.4 million to Win Victory.
ICAC said the case came to light in connection with its
investigation of Shanghai Land Holdings Ltd.
Mo was charged in December 2003 with manipulation of Shanghai
Land's share price and embezzlement of company funds. On December 8
this year, she was named as a co-conspirator in obstructing an
investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission into
suspected share-price rigging at the company.
Mo was the general manager of Shanghai Land and her husband,
Zhou Zhengyi (Chau Ching-ngai), was the company's chairman.
Zhou, named the 11th richest man in China by Forbes
magazine in 2002, was sentenced by a Shanghai court on June 1 this
year to three years in jail for stock market fraud and falsifying
documents.
Fallout from the Shanghai Land case also affected the Bank of
China. Liu Jinbao, the vice chairman and chief executive of its
Hong Kong unit, BOC Hong Kong, was sacked, detained and expelled
from the Communist Party in connection with a HK$1.8 billion
(US$226.9 million) loan to a company owned by Zhou. Criminal
charges against him are still pending.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn December 23, 2004)