Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has charged director and shareholder of Win Victory Holdings Ltd. Mo Yuk-ping (Sandy Mo) with fraud amounting to millions of dollars. Mo was appeared at the Eastern Magistracy at 9:30 Thursday morning.

Mo, 42, was released on bail earlier this week after being formally charged with 23 counts of conspiracy to defraud, according to a government press release Wednesday.

The charges allege Mo conspired to commit fraud by causing Hong Kong Nam Hoi Enterprise Ltd. to apply to the banks for a total of 23 letters of credit in favor of Win Victory, a trading company.

To support the applications, between June 2001 and March 2003 they allegedly submitted false documents to the banks that were purported to indicate business deals between Nam Hoi and Win Victory. The banks approved the letters of credit and issued a total of HK$89 million (US$11.4 million to Win Victory.

ICAC said the case came to light in connection with its investigation of Shanghai Land Holdings Ltd.

Mo was charged in December 2003 with manipulation of Shanghai Land's share price and embezzlement of company funds. On December 8 this year, she was named as a co-conspirator in obstructing an investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission into suspected share-price rigging at the company.

Mo was the general manager of Shanghai Land and her husband, Zhou Zhengyi (Chau Ching-ngai), was the company's chairman.

Zhou, named the 11th richest man in China by Forbes magazine in 2002, was sentenced by a Shanghai court on June 1 this year to three years in jail for stock market fraud and falsifying documents.

Fallout from the Shanghai Land case also affected the Bank of China. Liu Jinbao, the vice chairman and chief executive of its Hong Kong unit, BOC Hong Kong, was sacked, detained and expelled from the Communist Party in connection with a HK$1.8 billion (US$226.9 million) loan to a company owned by Zhou. Criminal charges against him are still pending.

(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn December 23, 2004)