A Hong Kong property manager has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for stealing HK$61.1 million (US$7.8 million) from a housing estate over a decade by adding a zero to reimbursement cheques. Wong Wai-lung, 53, admitted to the elaborate fraud and gambled away all the money. The High Court described it as the largest single theft from a Hong Kong residential complex's owners’ corporation to date.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong's High Court sentenced Wong Wai-lung to 18 years in prison. As property manager for Choi Ming Court in Tseung Kwan O, he oversaw chequebooks and financial documents from 2011 to 2021. He stole HK$61.1 million by adding a zero to signed reimbursement cheques issued by the estate's owners’ corporation for work expenses, inflating amounts tenfold before cashing them.
Wong, a 53-year-old father of one employed by Guardian Property Management, admitted the scheme. He wrote amounts only in numbers during signing and had signatories endorse genuine and fraudulent payments simultaneously to avoid detection. He also falsified the estate's passbooks, bank statements, and confirmation letters through cutting, pasting, and photocopying before submitting them to his employer for verification and auditing.
Wong gambled away all the proceeds, committing a gross breach of trust. Mr Justice Johnny Chan Jong-herng stated: “The facts showed that the defendant committed the offences in an elaborate and well-planned manner.” The sum marks the largest theft from a Hong Kong residential complex's owners’ corporation on record.
Managed by the owners’ corporation, Choi Ming Court highlights the need for robust financial oversight. The court stressed the sentence's deterrent purpose.
