Hong Kong Court Upholds 6.5-Year Sentence for Senior Police Officer in Mortgage Fraud Case

A Hong Kong court has dismissed an appeal by a senior police officer against his 6½-year jail sentence for fraudulently securing more than HK$26 million (US$3.3 million) in mortgages by concealing his affiliation with the force.

In a written judgment delivered on Monday, the Court of Appeal upheld Superintendent Harbour Chan Hoi-kong’s conviction on two counts of fraud, finding that he must have knowingly made false claims in two mortgage applications that he was the general manager of a food trading company founded by his ex-colleague.

Businessman and former chief inspector Wong Ho-ngai also lost an appeal against his five-year sentence for a count of the same offence.

Chan previously made a name for himself on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where he commented extensively on social issues and actively defended police actions during the 2019 anti-government protests.

In July and November 2019, the disgraced officer submitted two applications to a bank and a credit firm to obtain mortgages for a luxury house at Seaview Villas in Tai Po and a flat at Coastal Skyline in Tung Chung.

At the time, Chan was earning about HK$150,000 per month in the force, which was just below the institutions’ minimum requirements for mortgage applications.

In the applications, Chan falsely claimed that he was employed by Wong’s company, Commander Capital, earning a monthly income of more than HK$240,000.