The Anti-corruption Office had kept all the records and information relating to DS, and these were handed over to the ICAC when it was set up. The ICAC formally launched its own investigation in August 1976. DS was by now 58 and had been enjoying a comfortable retirement for seven years.
Although anti-corruption officers of the police had started to collect information on the detective sergeant’s huge fortune as early as 1968, the ICAC officers now had to probe into his assets all over again because so much time had elapsed. They had to look through all business, personal correspondence, bank accounts that could be connected to him.
Such elaborate tracing required massive resources of manpower and time, especially when only two of Hong Kong’s major banks assigned staff to help with ICAC’s investigation. To find out more about DS’s savings at a number of other banks, ICAC officers had to visit each branch involved to search through the files. Electronic data storage was uncommon in the 60s and banks usually only kept records of a client’s accounts for seven years. So just the task of tracing DS’s bank accounts was a tall order for the ICAC officers concerned.
The officer in charge of the investigation, an Acting Chief Investigator then, notes that the case spanned a period from 1935 to 1968. “Here we were in the 70s,” he says, “but we had to investigate people and events from the 40s and 50s. The chaotic wartime situation and the need to collect evidence on the Mainland made our investigations particularly difficult, for then time there was no Mutual Case Assistance Scheme, under which the ICAC can interview witnesses across the border with the assistance of our Mainland’s counterparts.”
Documented evidence showed that DS had developed a parcel of land in Hong Kong on which a guesthouse with a restaurant was erected. He had been an executive director of this venture from the start and had apparently taken care of all the business himself. The proprietor of the property was a woman whose maiden name was the same as that of DS’s wife. She was thus at first thought to be his sister-in-law, although he resolutely denied all knowledge of her. As the case officer recalls, “He arranged for the building contractors to meet with this woman and even signed as a witness to a variation order. So it was very hard to believe that he was telling the truth when he claimed he had no idea who she was.”
Then came a stroke of good fortune. A witness in the case revealed that he had on one occasion overheard a girl, who turned up at the restaurant, had addressed this woman as “mum”. This helped lift a veil for the investigators. This girl turned out to be the daughter of DS, and the restaurant proprietor was actually his wife, not his sister-in-law (as the woman’s use of an alias had led investigators to believe.)
Later, the ICAC team found three wills in his home. One of them mentioned his wife but the name used was the same as the proprietor of the guesthouse development. This clinched the matter. It was now clear that the development was indeed owned by DS’s wife. This was why he had personally selected the contractors. This was why he himself had spent around one million dollars on the project.
In 1969, most of the shares in the project were transferred from the proprietor to a person whose registered address was in Taiwan. Then, in 1972, some time after DS had left the police force, the shares were transferred back to him, using a residential address in Hong Kong. On the surface, it looked as if the property had been transferred from one person to another, but actually only one person was involved. DS had carefully orchestrated matters in order to conceal his assets. Having become more cautious after the Anti-corruption Branch’s interrogation in 1968, he had deliberately held the property in the name of a fictitious person using a Taiwan address.
As ICAC officers observe, “The man and his family never bought a property or other assets under their real names. But in the early stages of the investigation we had no way to find out how many aliases they had used. Even if we could prove that a property was being held under an alias, we still had to prove that this arrangement linked to him. Naturally, he strongly denied having used any aliases when questioned by the ICAC.”
Then an investigator hit luck while checking records at the Lands Registry. He stumbled on the strong evidence and proof that was needed to uncover the aliases. It appeared that DS had absent-mindedly written his full name on a land registration document and had then obliterated one of the characters in the name. This obvious amendment proved that this was in fact DS attempting to use an alias to register at least this particular asset. By following up this careless slip, the ICAC was finally able to confirm that DS had used no fewer than three aliases while his wife had employed one. This new evidence proved invaluable in pinning down for future analysis the real ownership of the assets connected to the case.
The investigators also discovered that the rent collected from leasing out the properties under the name of DS’s wife was all funnelled back to him. It was he who handled all tenancy matters and brazenly told a number of other people that he owned the properties. Even while claiming to be herself the proprietor, his wife handed out business cards bearing DS’s name to tenants. The investigators also found the same name cards at his home.
In addition, a number of Chinese seals bearing his aliases as well as one bearing his wife’s alias were also found. Further investigation revealed that the rent receipts issued in connection with the properties under the name of his wife bore the seal of one of her husband’s aliases. After his wife had sold the properties she held, the money from the sales also went to her husband. In July 1971, she transferred the title deed of a property to him. All this evidence combined to show that it was DS who was in control of the assets in question.