M'sian tycoon Lee Ming Tee arrested in HK
Yap Yok Foo
26th August 1998
M'sian tycoon Lee Ming Tee arrested in HK
By Quak Hiang Whai in Hongkong
THE exhausting and expensive investigations into the affairs of the
Hongkong-listed Allied Group may finally be coming to a head as the
group's founder and former chairman Lee Ming Tee was arrested by
Hongkong police yesterday.
A police spokesman told BT last night that Mr Lee, 58, was picked up
at the immigration point when he was crossing the border into China.
No details were released by the police except that the arrest is
linked to alleged offences involving conspiracy to defraud and the
lengthy investigations into the group's complex share dealings in the
early 1990s.
Mr Lee and his Allied group of companies came into the limelight here
in 1992 after the then Financial Secretary launched a massive
investigation into the affairs of the complex business group.
The probe into alleged misconduct in the group's share dealing was
reported to have cost the Hongkong government HK$100 million (S$22.9
million).
But despite the massive investigations and high costs, no criminal
charges have been brought. No director of the firms involved were
asked to pay compensation or banned from office.
Two Allied officials were, however, censured in March 1995 but Mr Lee,
who was at the centre of the investigations which included a raid of
100 Allied offices in 1993, was censured only in 1996.
Mr Lee, who resigned as chairman of Allied Group in 1993, has denied
liability for any breaches or admitted that he was responsible for, or
aware of, such breaches.
The Malaysian tycoon, who arrived in Hongkong in the mid-1980s, took
control of his first company on the Hongkong Stock Exchange in 1986
and subsequently diversified into a range of businesses including eel
farming and electronic products.
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/3/nfrnt04.html
Yap Yok Foo
Wednesday August 26 1998
Police charge former Allied chairman
DENISE TSANG
Updated at 5.03pm:
Police on Wednesday charged former Allied Group chairman Lee Ming Tee
with offences involving conspiracy to defraud.
Lee, 58, was to appear in court during the afternoon, police said.
Lee, a key figure in the most expensive corporate probe of a locally
listed company, was arrested on Tuesday night by the Commercial Crime
Bureau (CCB).
A police statement on Tuesday night said Mr Lee, 58, had been arrested
at 5pm at the Man Kam To border while attempting to cross into the
mainland. He was detained for further investigation.
The statement said the arrest - five years after the government
concluded its investigation - followed an extensive CCB probe into "a
range of fraudulent activities perpetrated between 1990 and 1992 by
former employees of Allied and their associates".
The CCB's probe began after Coopers & Lybrand partner Nicholas Allen -
appointed by the Government in 1992 to look into the matters -
discovered a number of possible criminal offences.
Mr Allen's investigation cost taxpayers $46 million, the most
expensive probe in local stock market history.
A 600-page report by Mr Allen released in 1993, alleged Mr Lee was
linked to a string of share trades between January 1990 and May 1992
to consolidate his control of Allied.
The report alleged Mr Lee and his nephew Lee Seng-chay used a network
of off-shore companies, such as a bank based in the Cook Islands, to
evade Hong Kong share disclosure laws and avoid paying for share
transactions.
Mr Allen also identified former Allied finance director Ronald Tse
Chu-fai, former Allied chief executive Chan Chun-on and Lee Seng-chay
as key players in disguising the trades. Mr Allen said the actions
were prejudicial to minority shareholders.
Lee Ming Tee, who resigned from Allied in 1993, was publicly
reprimanded by the stock exchange in April 1996 for breaching exchange
rules relating to "his undertakings with regard to directors".
Mr Tse is in police custody in Australia, pending extradition.
He is to face 22 charges connected with offences such as conspiracy to
defraud contrary to common law, publishing false statements by company
directors, obtaining property by deception, obtaining services by
deception and conspiracy to falsify accounts contrary to the Theft
Ordinance.
Mr Tse was a director of several companies within Allied Group until
1993. He left Hong Kong in early 1994 and has not returned.
Mr Chan, however, resigned and left for Taiwan on August 13, 1992, one
day after Mr Allen was appointed.
Identifying Mr Chan as a close associate of Lee Ming Tee since 1985,
Mr Allen believed Mr Chan "had gone into hiding".
Police sources said Hong Kong police had notified Interpol to pursue
Mr Chan.
Mr Chan and Mr Tse were censured by the stock exchange in 1995 for
breaching listing rules.
The exchange's statement at the time said Mr Tse and Mr Chan had
demonstrated "lack the character and integrity expected of a director
of a listing issuer".