A retired Inspector of the Customs and Excise Department (C&E) and his wife were charged by the ICAC yesterday (November 21) for allegedly concealing their non-compliance of the relevant live-in requirement under the Home Financing Scheme (HFS) for civil servants to deceive the government into granting the housing allowance totalling over $1.5 million.

A then Police Constable was charged by the ICAC yesterday (November 20) with an offence under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (POBO) for allegedly accepting an unauthorised loan of $15,000 from a person (the subject) previously involved in Police enquiries handled by him.

Following the receipt of corruption complaints alleging wage exploitation of imported workers, the ICAC conducted an investigation and revealed that a leader of a team of carpenters of the Three-Runway System Project (3RS Project) of the Hong Kong International Airport had accepted bribes totalling about $54,000 from 10 imported workers for assisting them to continue their employment. The team leader, charged by the Commission, received a jail term of 17 weeks after pleading guilty to bribery at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts today (November 20).

An insurance intermediary, charged by the ICAC, was today (November 19) sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts for conspiring with two policyholders to deceive an insurer into paying accident insurance compensation to them by making false representations about their injuries. The offence was revealed in the course of an ICAC corruption investigation.

A businessman appeared at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts for mention this afternoon (November 18) after being charged by the ICAC in the morning for allegedly offering a bribe of $50,000 to a senior lecturer of the School of Professional Education and Executive Development (SPEED) of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in a bid to secure his admission to a top-up degree programme.

A then general manager of a pharmaceutical wholesaler and his subordinate were charged by the ICAC yesterday (November 12) for making false representation about consultancy and other services provided by a secretarial services company operated by the subordinate to defraud the pharmaceutical wholesaler of service fees totalling over $1.1 million. Meanwhile, a business partner of the subordinate was charged with money laundering.

The ICAC today (November 13) charged a works subcontractor and a worker for allegedly conspiring together to defraud a glass facade contractor of overpaid wages totalling over $330,000 by making false representations about workers’ attendance records. The subcontractor was also charged with perversion for allegedly instructing workers to falsely claim the latter’s attendance.

The ICAC had earlier charged 11 people, including the operator of a small house developer, a village representative and small house applicants, for allegedly conspiring to deceive the Lands Department into granting various building licenses for a small house estate development project in Yuen Long by transferring the “Ding Rights” concerned. Two of the small house applicants today (November 8) admitted their roles in the scam at the Tuen Mun Magistrates’ Courts.

The ICAC is committed to assisting the construction industry to enhance integrity management and corruption prevention capabilities. In order to encourage the sector to implement integrity management continually and uphold a probity culture, the ICAC has joined hands with the Construction Industry Council (CIC) to launch the “Integrity Management Award” in the Outstanding Contractor Award 2024 and took part in its assessment.

The ICAC and the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) today (November 6) co-organised a thematic workshop on supervisory accountability for about 150 Ethics Officers and staff responsible for integrity management of around 70 bureaux / departments (B/Ds) under the Ethical Leadership Programme (ELP), with a view to entrenching the integrity culture in government departments.