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A 24-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to 16 months imprisonment after the conviction of one count of ¡§Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception¡¨ in relation to a case of mortgage Fraud¡¨ in District Court today (August 29).
The court heard that in September 2002, the defendant made a mortgage application for an amount of HK$926,820 to a bank in order to finance the purchase of a residential property at Tai Po Centre for a purchase price of HK$1,000,000.
In support of his mortgage loan application, the defendant submitted a letter of employment and four Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) records to the bank, showing that he had been employed as a programmer from September 2001 with a monthly salary of HK$25,900.
Police Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) enquiries revealed that the MPF records provided by the defendant were false, as the defendant had never registered in the MPF scheme and contributed to the MPF provider.
On October 31, 2002, the mortgage from the bank was drawn down but the defendant defaulted to meet the mortgage repayments after making nine monthly installments to the bank.
The property was later repossessed by the bank by a civil litigation and sold in May 2004. The financial loss of the bank was HK$150,648 as at June 30,2005.
On June 16, 2004, the defendant was arrested by CCB officers at his Ap Lei Chau home. He was later charged with ¡§Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception¡¨.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge today in the District Court and sentence was meted out.
Police Report No.11
Ends/Monday, August 29, 2005
Issued at HKT 19:29
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