Property agent jailed eight months for defrauding HK$3.8m in mortgage loan

A 54-year-old property agent was on Thursday jailed for eight months for she deceived a financial services company into granting her a HK$3.8 million mortgage loan by falsely claiming that she worked as a logistics manager with a HK$120,000 monthly salary. 

The defendant Yeung Pui-hung was charged by the ICAC and was earlier convicted of fraud. 

Passing down the sentence at the Eastern Court today, magistrate Minnie Wat Lai-man said Yeung didn’t show remorse at all, but noted she had fully repaid the mortgage loan. Wat then started the jail term at nine months and reduced it by a month. 

The court heard that in August 2018, Yeung applied for the HK$3.8 million mortgage loan with OCBC Wing Hang Credit Limited (Wing Hang Credit) through a financial intermediary. 

Yeung falsely claimed that she had been employed by a logistics company as a full-time logistics manager for over one year with a monthly salary of HK$120,000. She also provided the relevant employment proof and bank account statements. 

The application was subsequently approved by Wing Hang Credit and Yeung received the loan in February 2019. 

The ICAC investigation arose from a corruption complaint. Enquiries revealed that the logistics company had never issued the employment proof to Yeung, who had previously worked for the company at a monthly salary of only about HK$20,000. 

It was also revealed that Yeung had made various cash deposits in the amount of HK$120,000 into her bank account purporting to be the monthly salary she received. 

ICAC said Wing Hang Credit rendered full assistance during investigation into the case.