Trial of former IPIM chief scheduled for April

The trial of former President of the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) Jackson Chang is scheduled for April 27, seven months after he was placed on remand in July, TDM Radio Macau has reported.
Last month, Chang was officially charged by the Public Prosecution Office (MP) for several crimes including corruption, money laundering and breach of secrecy, together with his wife and daughter.
He was also charged for other offenses in the process of assessing applications for, and granting residence permits to, investors and professionals.
Chang is currently being held in a high security prison, where former Secretary for Transport and Public Works Ao Man Long and former top prosecutor Ho Chio Meng are also serving time.
The former high-ranking official has been under criminal investigation since October 2018 for alleged irregularities regarding the granting of residency status through investment schemes, uncovered by the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC).
Three high-level public servants including Chang and Gloria Batalha Ung – a former member of IPIM’s executive committee – were under investigation owing to their alleged commission of duty-related crimes in the process of vetting and approving residency applications.
Ung, who returned to IPIM late last year, is also on trial on charges of abuse of power and breach of secrecy.
The CCAC discovered during the investigation that between 2010 and 2018, a local business couple colluded with some other individuals to provide “one-stop services” to apply for “major investment immigration” or “technical immigration” on behalf of others by making use of over 50 companies opened or controlled by them and fabricating investment projects, professional experience and employment relationships in order to make illicit profits.
Using these methods, the syndicate collected large amounts of money as “agency fees” from those applicants, who did not actually meet immigration requirements, involving a sum of over 10 million patacas.
The CCAC also found that Chang colluded with the syndicate by providing illegal assistance to the latter when it made immigration applications for others and actively facilitated the approval of the fraudulent applications.
“It also came to light that the former president, through his wife, daughter and his mistress in the Chinese mainland, received illicit advantages from the syndicate for a long time,” the CCAC previously said. LV