Buried evidence After the severe short piling of these two buildings was discovered, HD reported to the ICAC on 23 December 1999 on suspicion of corruption. Two weeks later, on 6 January 2000, Zen Pacific also reported to the ICAC, alleging that the works involved corruption. HA told the ICAC that they would be holding a press conference on 9 January 2000 in order to calm public concern as quickly as possible. They said that they would use this conference to announce that they would be stopping the construction of the superstructure for the two buildings. The ICAC realized that once this news broke, their investigations would be compromised to a considerable extent. They now had only ten odd days to master all the intricate details of the case if they were to catch all the suspects in one dragnet. Mr Leung Kai-wing, the ICAC Senior Investigator responsible for investigating this case, recalls: "All this happened over the long Christmas and New Year holidays. But none of us were in holiday mood. Our only goal was to go through the stacks of documents and files as promptly and speedily as possible in order to discover the ins and outs of the crime. It was very difficult to gather evidence for cases involving short piling because the major material evidence now lay deep underground."