Fraudsters jailed after claiming to be handling deal for Jiang Zemin's sister in US$10 trillion HSBC swindle
Mainlander and two Taiwan-born tricksters used fake documents in audacious bank deception.
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 29 January, 2015, 11:59pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 29 January, 2015, 11:59pm
Thomas Chan [email protected]
The five fraudsters visited HSBC headquarters in Central (above) on March 26 and asked two staff members to help present the counterfeit documents to the bank's group chief executive, Stuart Gulliver. Photo: Nora Tam
A mainlander and two Taiwan-born fraudsters were jailed on Thursday after they claimed in March to be handling a deal for former president Jiang Zemin's sister in an attempt to swindle a bank out of US$10 trillion with fake documents.
Zhong Dihang, 35, Jimmy Wu Ping-yang, 63, and Hwa Sih-hul, 60, will serve jail terms of two years and four months, two years and six months and three years and two months, respectively. Two others are still at large.
The five visited HSBC headquarters in Central on March 26 and asked two staff members to help present the counterfeit documents to the bank's group chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, the District Court heard earlier.
They boasted that the two deposit forms and two deposit confirmation slips were meant for a meeting at HSBC with officials from the UN, International Monetary Fund, Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Hong Kong government the following day, and asked the bank to verify the validity of the documents.
Questioned by staff, the group asserted they were handling a transaction for Jiang's sister, the court heard. "The defendants must have discussed and mapped out their plan before committing the offences," Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong said yesterday, describing their plan as bold.
Yau praised HSBC employees for being so conscientious about their work that their employer did not sustain any losses.
Last month Hwa, a Taiwan-born Hong Kong resident and the only woman in the group, was found guilty after trial of trying to make HSBC staff believe the four forged documents were genuine.
Zhong and Wu had earlier admitted two counts of using fake documents, and to possessing a fake document and using a false passport, respectively.
Wu was serving a term of four years and five months in jail for trying to cheat Citibank out of US$10 billion, the court heard on Thursday.
Yau rejected Hwa's claims that she was merely translating for her two accomplices.
