Courts | Prosecution lists more ‘front companies’ used to wrongfully acquire residence cards

In the trial of the case involving 26 total defendants, several of which are former high-ranked officials from the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), yesterday the prosecution revealed the name of another company, also co-owned by the fourth defendant, Ng Kuok Sao, which had been used to submit a residency application under IPIM’s investment residency program.
As others previously mentioned in the courtroom, the Forever Creation Engineering Company Limited, owned by Ng, was used to introduce applicants to the local residency applications at IPIM for major investment plans. However, at the time, the company seemed to have an idle status, no workers, and minimal bank account history and balance.
According to yesterday’s testimony of the investigator from the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC), the way the company altered the composition of its shareholders to include a mainland man named Wang Jieren meant he was able to file an application for residency in Macau. The application claimed that the company’s new major shareholder intended to invest at least 70 million patacas in several of the company’s projects, one of which included a part of the construction works of Galaxy Macau Phase 2.
During the testimony of the CCAC investigator, several documents were shown by the prosecutor which they claimed were evidence of the whole scheme organized by Ng.
One of these documents is an agreement between Wang and One Kin Construction Company Limited, dated from December 2013, which states that to be eligible for residency, Wang will have to invest a total of HKD1.2 million in the company in three installments (HKD400,000, HKD200,000 and HKD600,000).
The prosecution claims that this document proves the amounts requested by the alleged criminal organization were meant to secure unlawful Macau residency cards.
Unusually, the defense lawyer of the 10th and 17th defendants, Ao Ieong Cheok In, noticed that such an agreement with Wang had been signed by not by Ng or any administrator of One Kin, but instead by a man whom the CCAC investigation determined to be a driver at the company. The defense used this fact to question the legality of the document.
During the session, the same lawyer tried to prove with recorded conversations and documents submitted to IPIM that Wang had no working link to the company or any effective investment projects, claiming that all statements and documents submitted to IPIM were forged.
He also tried to prove, with the help of bank records, that even the money deposited into the Forever Creation Company bank account came from another partner of Ng, a man named Lou Hoi Pan who co-owned a company named Pou Shing. It was to Pou Shing that the money was immediately transferred after it was deposited in Forever Creation via bank checks signed by Ng.
The defense lawyer of Wu Sok Wah, wife of Ng Kuok Sao, asked about the investigation into the construction works of the Galaxy Macau Phase 2 as part of the portfolio of the Forever Creation Company. Lawyers Kuong Kuok On and Ao Ieong asked the CCAC investigator if they determined whether the company was involved in such construction work, by being a sub-concessionaire of the main contractor or acting as an intermediary and sub-contracting other companies to do the work.
As in the previous case of Hunan (Macao) Engineering Equipment Installation Company Limited, the reply was negative, and as such, Judge Leong Fong Meng once again ordered the court to inquire with Galaxy Entertainment Group if Forever Creation Company had any involvement in the Phase 2 works.
“Given the importance of ascertaining the truth, the court needs to know who was the general contractor of the construction and to ascertain if Hunan Engineering, One Kin or Forever Creation had been involved in any way,” Leong said. The company was given 20 days to provide concrete information on the companies involved in the construction works between 2013 and 2015.
The session held yesterday comes after last Friday’s session, where it was revealed that the Public Prosecution will soon call the former president of the IPIM, Irene Lau, to testify. Lau will have to reply to questions on a residency approval signed in October 2018 when she was serving as president after Jackson Chang was removed from the post due to the anti-graft investigation.