香港特別行政區 對 陳凱港及另一人

On 17 August 2026, the Court of Appeal (Pang, Yeung and Chan JJ) handed down judgment in HKSAR v Chan Hoi-kong and Wong Ho-ngai (CACC 111/2024, [2026] HKCA 1408), dismissing both applicants' applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. Senior Counsel Hui Siu-ting (with Fok Kin-ming and Lau Ching-lam) acted for D1 Chan; Mr Lai Ka-kit acted for D2 Wong. The Respondent was represented by Assistant DPP Cheung Cheuk-kun and Senior Public Prosecutor Lau Cheuk-yin.

D1, a serving Police Superintendent earning around HK$150,000 per month, applied to refinance two properties through BEA (HK$21.5 million) and OCBC Wing Hang Credit (HK$4.8 million). In both applications, he concealed his police employment and falsely represented that he worked for Commander Capital Company Limited ("Commander"), a company controlled by D2, at a monthly salary of HK$245,000. D2, a former police officer and D1's training school classmate, had sole control of Commander's bank account and seals.

The prosecution's case rested on a striking change in payment pattern. From 2015 to early 2019, Commander paid D1 irregular dividends by cheque, marked "DIVIDEND", into D1's HSBC salary account. From May 2019, just weeks before the BEA application, D2 switched to monthly autopay of HK$245,000 into D1's separate Standard Chartered account, all marked "SALARY COMMANDER C C LTD". Three employment letters purportedly from Commander were also produced for the OCBC Wing Hang application.

The Court held that:

(1) For D1, the question was not who signed the application forms but whether he provided the false information. The undisputed facts, particularly D1's personal attendance at BEA's Kwun Tong office to verify documents and his later submission of the same Standard Chartered statements to OCBC Wing Hang, supported the inference that he knowingly supplied the false employment data (§§42-45).

(2) For D2, the timing and nature of the payment changes, which only he could arrange, constituted strong circumstantial evidence of knowledge and participation in the BEA fraud. Applying DPP for Northern Ireland v Maxwell [1978] 1 WLR 1350 and R v Bainbridge [1960] 1 QB 129, the prosecution did not need to prove D2 knew the specific bank; knowledge of the type of crime (using salary records to support a loan application) sufficed (§§65, 88).

(3) On sentence, the Court rejected the argument that the absence of actual bank loss should drive the starting point down. "Amount involved" and "loss suffered" are distinct concepts (§78). D1's status as a disciplined service member aggravated the offence; his good character and social contributions warranted only a six-month reduction.

The applications for leave to appeal were refused and the appeals dismissed.

For practitioners: this case confirms that the prosecution can establish fraud against an applicant who did not personally complete or sign loan forms, provided the objective evidence shows he supplied the false information. For secondary parties, a sudden change in payment arrangements that creates the appearance of regular salary income, made shortly before a loan application, will support an inference of knowledge and participation, even without direct evidence of the specific transaction targeted.