The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will this year step up anti-corruption services for the building management and banking sectors through its recently-established inter-departmental task forces.

Over the past three days, the ICAC has arrested 20 persons for their alleged involvement in substandard piling works at two housing blocks of Tin Chung Court, a Housing Department (HD) Home Ownership Scheme project in Tin Shui Wai, suspected to be facilit ated by corruption.

A Mainland visitor was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment at Western Court today (Tuesday) for offering a $4,000 bribe to a Senior Immigration Officer when he attended an interview on his right of abode application.

Two directors of a finance company were arrested by the ICAC for allegedly bribing a former chairman and a former deputy general manager of a state-owned enterprise in Hong Kong to secure $30 million compensation, which was ten times more than the due amo unt, after the failure of a business deal.

A former general manager of a printing products manufacturing company was sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment at District Court today (Monday) for stealing $1,480,000 from the company and its subsidiaries with falsified invoices.

As a result of joint efforts of the ICAC and Australian authorities, a HK$20 million citizenship scam involving an Australia-based former official of the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA), who allegedly took bribes from a Hong Kong emigration consultant to grant Australian citizenship to unqualified applicants, was smashed.

An Immigration Officer, charged by the ICAC, was jailed for 10 years by the Court of First Instance today (Friday) for his involvement in illicit passport trade.

The Eastern Court today (Monday) ordered to estreat $250,000 cash surety from a senior executive of a subsidiary of Guangnan (Holdings) Limited (Guangnan), who was wanted by the ICAC in relation to alleged Letters of Credit (L/C) frauds involving $267 mil lion.

The ICAC has smashed a syndicate which allegedly manufactured and forged dependant travel passes of New World First Bus Services Limited (First Bus) for sale, and made over $300,000 in illegal profits.

A music director and his mother, who aided and abetted Mainland music students in Hong Kong to contravene their condition of stay by arranging them to perform in musical concerts for rewards, were each sentenced to three months' imprisonment, suspended fo r two years, at Eastern Court today (Wednesday).