Two nabbed for conspiring to defraud govt loan scheme

Police have arrested two people on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Sources said the case was in connection with a government loan scheme. The two are understood to be Kong Cheung-fat – a former member of the Wang Fuk Court Owners' Corporation – and his wife, who are both the directors of an engineering company. They allegedly obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Special 100 percent Loan Guarantee, under the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme, using fraudulent means and handling the proceeds, according to sources. It is understood that the man falsified the company's operating revenue when he applied for the loan twice in 2022. Most of the loan was withdrawn in cash, including a portion that was directly transferred to the man's personal account. Under the scheme, which was a temporary relief measure during the pandemic, borrowers had to prove that they recorded at least a 30 percent drop in sales turnover in any month from February 2020 compared with the monthly average of any preceding quarter between January 2019 and June 2020. Edited by Tony Sabine