Hong Kong's anti-graft agency will bring a wanted former chairman of a listed company to the court for the alleged conspiracy to defraud charges over HK$330 million fraudulent transactions.
The suspect Li Songxiao is the former chairman of Neo-China Group (Holdings), which is now renamed as Shanghai Industrial Urban Development Group (0563), according to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Li returned to Hong Kong on Tuesday and surrendered himself to the ICAC, and will be brought to the court for mention tomorrow.
Li was alleged to have conspired with then-senior executives of the listed company to defraud its shareholders and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (SEHK) by inflating the profit and assets of the listed company through fraudulent property transactions involving over HK$330 million in total.
Between October 2003 and August 2009, Li was the chairman of Neo-China while Che Hanshu and Zhang Yaohui were executive directors of the listed company.
According to ICAC’s investigation, between November 2003 and July 2007, Li, Chen and Zhang had conspired with the company secretary and financial controller of Neo-China to defraud shareholders of Neo-China and the SEHK.
The charges are about the two property sale and purchase agreements, involving Neo-China’s false representation about the acquisition of 100 percent equity interest in Top Fair Limited at HK$210 million, and the disposal of the entire interest in Noble Time Development, a subsidiary of Neo-China, to Northwest Link Investments Limited at HK$123 million.
While the individuals declared in the announcements of Neo-China that the owners of Top Fair and Northwest Link were independent of and not connected with the executives or substantial shareholders of the company and created false accounting statements, Li was in fact the beneficiary owner of Top Fair and Northwest Link, according to the ICAC.
The warrants for the arrest of Li, Che and Zhang were issued in late February 2011 when they had already left Hong Kong. The warrants for Che and Zhang were still valid.
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