The defendant, Wong Wai-lung, pleaded guilty to five counts of theft and admitted the facts pertaining to the charges in the court below. He confirmed his guilty pleas and admission of the facts pertaining to the charges.
The five charges involved five bank accounts of one victim, ie the incorporated owners of Choi Ming Court. The offence periods of the five charges overlapped. The sums stolen and the offence periods are as follows:
Charge 1
Sum stolen, HK$4,932,200. Offence period, between 4 March 2011 and 29 June 2021.
Charge 2
Sum stolen, HK$17,542,100. Offence period, between 3 March 2011 and 16 June 2021.
Charge 3
Sum stolen, HK$36,497,100. Offence period, between 21 April 2011 and 29 June 2021.
Charge 4
Sum stolen, HK$1,226,900. Offence period, between 1 February 2011 and 15 June 2021.
Charge 5
Sum stolen, HK$910,000. Offence period, between 20 June 2019 and 25 April 2021.
The total sum stolen was HK$61,108,300. The five charges spanned over a period of 10 years and 4 months between 1 February 2011 and 29 June 2021.
The Facts
Choi Ming Court in Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong, is a public estate built in 2001. Some of the estate units were sold under the Homes Ownership Scheme (“HOS”). In September 2002, the incorporated owners of Choi Ming Court (“IO”) was formed. At the material times, PW3, PW4, PW5, and PW6 were the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Treasurer, and Secretary of the committee of the IO respectively.
In 2001, Guardian Property Management Limited (“Guardian”) was hired as the management company of Choi Ming Court. The defendant, then an Assistant Property Officer of Guardian, has been tasked to work in Choi Ming Court. On 1 September 2015, the defendant was promoted to the rank of Property Manager.
For the purpose of the daily operation of Choi Ming Court, the IO opened inter alia 10 accounts (“Accounts 1 to 10”) with the Bank of Communications Company Limited (“the Bank”). Charges 1 to 5 concerned accounts 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10 respectively. Accounts 5 and 9 are saving accounts and accounts 4, 6 and 10 are current accounts.
PW3, PW4, PW5, and PW6 and other committee members of the IO were the authorised signatories of the accounts 1 to 10. Every withdrawal from the accounts required the signatures of at least three authorised signatories. In practice, whenever D needed to make withdrawals from the accounts, he would seek for the authorised signatures from three of PW3 to PW6.
Being the Property Manager, D was entrusted by the IO for the custody of the chequebooks of accounts 4, 6, and 10 and
the passbooks of accounts 5 and 9 (ie the five bank accounts in question). D also had the custody of the two authorisation stamps of the IO.
One of D’s main duties was to prepare for the monthly report (“Monthly report”) of accounts 1 to 10 and enclose the report with copies of passbooks or bank statements of the accounts as supporting documents. He should then obtain the confirmation signatures of PW5, the treasurer, in the report and submit the documents to PW11, assistant accountant of Guardian for verification.
Messrs Chang, Leung, Hui and Li CPA Limited (“CLHL”) was the CPA company hired by the IO to carry out the annual auditing for the IO for the financial years (“FY”) 2006/2007, and from 2008/2009 to 2019/2020. Upon the conclusion of each financial year, one of the auditing procedures was that CLHL would request the bank to confirm the balances of accounts 1 to 10. In so doing, the bank would issue five banker’s confirmation (“Confirmation Letters”), one for two accounts, to CLHL. If the balances were consistent with the records and documents provided by the IO, CLHL would proceed to prepare for the auditor’s report. Yet if the balances were inconsistent, CLHL would request Guardian to follow up the matter.
In May 2021, five confirmation letters confirming the balances of accounts 1 to 10 as of 1 March 2020 were sent to the officers of CLHL for the bank. However, upon auditing, CLHL found that the actual balances of accounts 4, 5 and 10, were different from the information submitted by D for the IO for the financial year 2019/2020, with a total shortfall of HK$49,799,680.22.
CLHL therefore requested Guardian to follow up the matter. PW11 first inquired with D about the discrepancies for which D claimed that he would clarify with the bank. However, since no reasonable explanations were provided and a number of cheques issued by the IO to settle its legitimate expenses have been bounced during the period, PW1, the chief manager of Security and Compliance of Savills Services Group, the mother security company of Guardian, made a report to the police on 22 June 2021.
On 29 June 2021, D called PW3 and said he wanted to meet up with PW3 in Choi Ming Court as he had something to tell PW3. When they met, D confessed to PW3 that he had been stealing money from the IO’s bank accounts in the past 10 years. When PW3 asked D how he was able to do so, D said he had provided cheques for PW3 to 6 to sign for the reimbursement of expenses he had incurred for the IO. However, after the cheques had been signed, D increased the amount stated in the cheques by adding “0” to the amounts before cashing the same. D said he had lost all the stolen money on gambling.
On the same day, D made the same confessions to PW2 and PW8, two senior staff members of Guardian. He further admitted that he had forged or falsified the confirmation letters, passbooks, and bank statements issued by the bank through cutting, pasting and photocopying before submitting them to Guardian for verification or to CLHL for auditing. For such reason, Guardian and CLHL did not know D had been stealing money from the accounts.
D was arrested. Upon investigation, the police found that:
Stolen Amounts
(a) the bank provided all transaction records of accounts 1 to 10 from February 2011 to the police. D has only withdrawn money from accounts 1, 3 to 6, and 9 to 10. There were 428 occasions of withdrawals by means of withdrawing slips or cheques payable to D. They were withdrawn in cash or by directly transferred to D’s two personal account with Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”);
(b) copies of all withdrawal slips and cheques were retrieved. Authorised signatures of three of PW3 to 6 appeared on all of them;
(c) the money stolen are calculated by comparing the withdrawal amounts with the legitimate expenses of D incurred for the IO and whether the amounts were disclosed in the monthly reports submitted to Guardian;
(d) the stolen amounts by D are found to be as follows:
Charge 1
HK$4,932,200 was stolen from account 4 between 4 March 2011 and 29 June 2021.
Charge 2
HK$17,542,100 was stolen from account 5 between 3 March 2011 and 16 June 2021.
Charge 3
HK$36,497,100 was stolen from account 6 between 21 April 2021 and 29 June 2021.
Charge 4
HK$1,226,900 was stolen from account 9 between 1 February 2011 and 15 June 2021.
Charge 5
HK$910,000 was stolen from account 10 between 20 June 2019 and 25 April 2021.
Monthly reports
(e) between May 2010 and May 2020, D submitted a total of 123 monthly reports to PW11 for verification. Since January 2011, some of the balances in the reports became incorrect. D also enclosed the reports with forged or falsified copies of passbooks and bank statements. Incorrect balances in the reports and the forged or falsified bank statements were only related to accounts 4 to 6 and 9 to 10;
(f) D obtained the confirmation signatures from PW5 in the monthly reports until August 2015. After that, he forged the signatures of PW5 in the reports and submitted the same to PW11 for verification. Since May 2020, D did not submit any further monthly reports to Guardian;
Confirmation letters
(g) between 2011 and 2020, D, as the property manager of the IO, instructed the bank to send the confirmation letters to the Tiu King Leng Branch of the bank for him to pick up every year;
(h) D told the bank that the IO would submit the confirmation letters to CLHL direct. The bank complied with those requests;
(i) upon picking up the confirmation letters, D forged other sets of confirmation letters with incorrect balances and submitted the same to CLHL for auditing. The auditor’s reports were accordingly made;
Premises searched
(j) upon search of D’s office at the Choi Ming Court, the genuine passbooks, chequebooks, bank statements, and confirmation letters of accounts 1 to 10 were seized;
(k) forged or falsified copies of the passbooks, chequebooks, bank statements, and confirmation letters were also seized;
(l) police also found materials and tools such as cutters, rulers, plier, glues and duck tapes;
(m) a stamp was found in the drawer of D. The stamp was a standardised stamp bearing “BANK OF COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD. Hong Kong Branch” and “Authorized Signature(s)”;
(n) a set of 26-alphabet and 4-symbol stamps were found in another drawer used by D;
Other investigation
(o) a total of HK$21,800,209 cash deposits were made into D’s two SCB accounts between 3 January 2010 and 5 June 2021;
(p) between 2010 and 2021, D gambled heavily with the Hong Kong Jockey Club (“HKJC”), HK$10,891,000 was lost via D’s betting account with HKJC;
(q) between 2011 and 2019, D travelled to Macau for 59 times. In some months, he travelled to Macau for a few times in the same month;
(r) D had no properties in Hong Kong and had a debt of over HK$1 million. As of June 2021, only a small amount of the loan was repaid; and
(s) all of D’s bank accounts and HKJC accounts had minimal balances upon his arrest.
Video-recorded interviews (VRI)
The police had in total taken five cautioned VRIs with D. In the first VRI, D stated inter alia the following:
(a) he was a property manager and employed by Guardian and managed the accounting of the IO;
(b) D was in debt of over HK$10 million because of his gambling in Macau and with HKJC;
(c) D had issued cheques or cash withdrawal slips from the current accounts of the IO payable to himself. He would draft the cheques or withdrawal slips for the signatures of the committee members;
(d) in so doing, D would only fill the amounts and figures but omit the payees which he would later fill in the name of himself;
(e) he would give multiple cheques to the committee members for signatures, including genuine and fraudulent payments, so that they would sign all together without noticing the problem;
(f) D stole the money from the current accounts and deposited the money into his SCB or HKJC accounts;
(g) regarding the bank confirmation letters over the IO’s accounts, he has in the past submitted the confirmation letter request forms to the branch of the bank in person;
(h) D then asked the bank to allow him to take the confirmation letters by himself for his discussions with CLHL;
(i) as such, he was able to take the confirmation letters and produce forged copies that displayed incorrect balances of accounts by cutting, pasting, and copying;
(j) tools that he used included cutters, rulers, pliers, glues, duck tapes, and photocopying machines;
(k) he then submitted the forged confirmation letters to the CLHL, concealing the deficits;
(l) similarly, for the account’s monthly statements, D also falsified, done by cutting and pasting, he then compiled the false monthly reports for PW5’s signatures; and
(m) in later stages, D did not ask PW5 to sign on the monthly reports.
In the second VRI, D stated inter alia that:
(a) D explained how he started keeping the relevant bank documents of the IO which allowed him to steal from the accounts;
(b) during March or April 2020, the accounts already had deficits in fund and caused difficulties in settling the expenses;
(c) since June 2020, D ceased to compile the monthly reports for the IO and he delayed the submissions with excuses made to PW11;
(d) on 29 June 2021, D was inquired by PW2 over the cheque payments that the IO’s accounts had failed to settle;
(e) D then confessed his misdeeds to PW3. D also surrendered himself to the police;
(f) the monthly reports of January to May 2020 and monthly bank statements enclosed with the reports were shown to D. D pointed out the signatures of PW5 and the information that he had forged or falsified;
(g) the forged confirmation letters of 2019 were also shown to D and he pointed out the information that he had falsified;
(h) D admitted that he had forged or falsified the documents to conceal the deficits in the accounts;
(i) D’s bank cards were shown to him. He admitted he had deposited over HK$10 million into his own personal SCB accounts;
(j) the two IO stamps and stationaries seized from D’s office were shown to D. He admitted they were used for forging the bank document copies; and
(k) genuine monthly bank statements and confirmation letter seized from D’s office were shown to him. D described how he had use those as materials to forge or falsify the copies.
In the third VRI, D stated inter alia the following:
(a) the confirmation letters between 2013 and 2017 were shown to D. D pointed out the parts on the documents he had forged or falsified;
(b) the documents of D’s personal accounts and HKJC account were shown to him. He stated that he would gamble with HKJC up to hundreds of thousands each time; and
(c) D admitted committing the offences alone.
In the fourth and fifth VRIs, D stated inter alia the following:
(a) the confirmation letters between 2013 and 2019 provided by CLHL to the police were forged by him. The stamps and the signatures on the documents were also forged by him;
(b) he had forged the bank confirmation letters every year between 2010 and 2020. He matched the same format;
(c) D also stated that on many of the forged confirmation letters, they were dated later than the dates of genuine ones as he needed time to forge them and thus would send them to CLHL on later dates;
(d) D bought the false bank stamp in a shop in Tsuen Wan;
(e) the monthly reports were shown to D. He admitted that all signatures of PW5 since August 2015 were forged by him;
(f) D admitted that the bank statement copies that were attached to the monthly reports were also forged or falsified by him;
(g) regarding D’s personal bank accounts and HKJC account, most cash deposits made into his two SCB accounts and the HKJC accounts were stolen money from the IO;
(h) the withdrawal records of accounts 4 to 6 and 9 to 10 were shown to D. D identified the withdrawals he had stolen from each of the accounts;
D admits and accepts that he has stolen from account 4 to 6 and 9 to 10 as follows:
Charge 1
Between 4 March 2011 and 29 June 2021, D stole HK$4,932,200 from account 4.
Charge 2
Between 3 March 2011 and 16 June 2021, D stole HK$17,542,100 from account 5.
Charge 3
Between 21 April 2021 and 29 June 2021, D stole HK$36,497,100 from account 6.
Charge 4
Between 1 February 2011 and 15 June 2021, D stole HK$1,226,900 from account 9.
Charge 5
Between 20 June 2019 and 25 April 2021, D stole HK$910,000 from account 10.
Antecedent
The defendant is now 53 years old, locally born. He received education up to Form 5. He was a property manager at the time of his arrest.
The defendant is married. He lived his wife and a daughter. He has a clear criminal record.
I have considered everything said on the defendant’s behalf by Mr Cheung in mitigation. I have also read the mitigation letter submitted by Mr Cheung.
Consideration
I have considered the following authorities or sentencing cases placed before me:
(1) HKSAR v Cheung Mee Kiu [2006] 4 HKLRD 776;
(2) HKSAR v Ng Kwok Wing and Another [2008] 4 HKLRD 1017;
(3) HKSAR v Kiu Mei Ling and 2 Others [2021] HKCFI 2862;
(4) HKSAR v Ma Chun Kit [2021] HKCFI 195;
The defendant committed the offences on multiple occasions over an extended period of 10 years.
In total, over HK$61 million was stolen by the defendant. I am told the actual loss suffered by the IO is HK$58,974,132.8.
The defendant committed the offence in gross breach of the trust that the IO of Choi Ming Court placed on him as the property manager of the housing estate. The defendant was also in breach of the trust that his employer Guardian had on him.
The offences involved lies told to the committee members of the IO, Guardian, and the bank. Authorised signatures of the IO were obtained by false pretences and at the later stage the defendant even forged the signatures himself. The defendant inflated the amounts stated in the cheques by adding “0” to the amounts before cashing the same. He forged or falsified documents, that is the monthly reports, the confirmation letters, passbooks, and bank statements by false pretences, forgery, cutting, pasting and photocopying. A forged stamp of the bank, a set of 26-alphabet and 4-symbol stamps were used. He was able to deceive the IO, Guardian, the bank and CLHL during the offence period until
the money in the bank accounts of the IO was depleted by the defendant to the extent that the balances were insufficient to settle the legitimate expenses and cheques have been bounced. The facts showed that the defendant committed the offences in an elaborate and well-planned manner.
The defendant lost all the stolen money in gambling.
I am told that the IO only has an insurance coverage of $60,000 in relation to fraud. Effectively, the loss falls on the IO and is irreparable. I am told the actual loss of the IO after some deposits made by the defendant during the offence period is HK$28,974,132.8, as shown in the table submitted by the defence in mitigation.
For the 26 deposits made by the defendant as shown in the table which spanned over October 2011 to August 2019, they represent only an insignificant fraction of the huge amount of over HK$61 million stolen by the defendant. As said, the total loss suffered by the IO is HK$58,974,132.8. It should be noted that the offences were discovered at a time when a number of cheques issued by the IO to settle its expenses have been bounced. I do not consider the deposits paid into the two accounts represent retribution as the deposits were made during the offence period, not repayments made by the defendant after his arrest. In my judgment, these deposits do not amount to a valid mitigating factor.
Taking into consideration the facts of the case, including the amounts involved, the offence period, and the modus operandi, in my judgment this case calls for a deterrent sentence.
Applying the tariffs in Cheung Mee Kiu and Ng Kwok Wing, on Charge 1, I take 6 years’ imprisonment as the starting point. The defendant should be given one-third reduction for his guilty plea, which would bring his sentence down to 4 years’ imprisonment, that is 48 months. Apart from his guilty plea, there is no other effective mitigating factor.
On Charge 2, I take 10 years’ imprisonment as the starting point. The defendant should be given one-third reduction for his guilty plea, which would bring his sentence down to 6 years and 8 months’ imprisonment, that is 80 months. Apart from his guilty plea, there is no other effective mitigating factor.
On Charge 3, I take 10 years’ imprisonment as the starting point. The defendant should be given one-third reduction for his guilty plea, which would bring his sentence down to 6 years and 8 months’ imprisonment, that is 80 months. Apart from his guilty plea, there is no other effective mitigating factor.
On Charge 4, I take 3 years and 3 months’ imprisonment, that is 39 months, as the starting point. The defendant should be given one-third reduction for his guilty plea, which would bring his sentence down to 2 years and 2 months’ imprisonment, that is 26 months. Apart from his guilty plea, there is no other effective mitigating factor.
On Charge 5, I take 2 years and 9 months’ imprisonment, that is 33 months, as the starting point. The defendant should be given one-third reduction for his guilty plea, which would bring his sentence down to 22 months’ imprisonment. Apart from his guilty plea, there is no other effective mitigating factor.
For the reasons given, on Charge 1, I sentence the defendant to 4 years’ imprisonment, that is 48 months. On Charge 2, I sentence the defendant to 6 years and 8 months’ imprisonment, that is 80 months. On Charge 3, I sentence the defendant to 6 years and 8 months’ imprisonment, that is 80 months. On Charge 4, I sentence the defendant to 2 years and 2 months’ imprisonment, that is 26 months. On Charge 5, I sentence the defendant to 22 months’ imprisonment.
The consideration of totality
The five offences involved a total sum of HK$61,108,300, which spanned over a period of 10 years. The actual loss suffered by the IO is HK$58,974,152.8. In my judgment, a total sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment should adequately reflect the overall culpability of the five offences. I order:
(1) The sentence of Charge 2 to run consecutively to the sentence of Charge 1, making a subtotal of 10 years and 8 months, 128 months;
(2) 4 years and 6 months of the sentence of Charge 3 to run consecutively to the sentences of Charges 1 and 2, making a subtotal of 15 years and 2 months, that is 182 months;
(3) 20 months of the sentence of Charge 4 to run consecutively to the sentences of Charges 1 to 3, making a subtotal of 16 years and 10 months, that is 202 months;
(4) 14 months of the sentence of Charge 5 to run consecutively to the sentences of Charges 1 to 4.
The total sentence is 18 years’ imprisonment, that is 216 months.