Hong Kong Billionaire Brothers Arrested for Bribery

Brothers Grim: Brothers who control Hong Kong's second biggest fortune were arrested for bribery Thursday.

Raymond and Thomas Kwok, the brothers whose real estate fortune is Hong Kong’s second biggest, were arrested Thursday by the SAR’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

At $18.3 billion the Kwoks’ fortune is listed just behind that of shipping tycoon Li Ka-shing’s as Hong Kong’s biggest, according to Forbes magazine. Their real estate development company Sun Hung Kai had retained as a special adviser a former chief secretary Rafael Hui who was arrested at the same time as the Kwok brothers.

“Two senior executives of a listed company in Hong Kong and a former principal official of the Hong Kong Government have been arrested for suspected corruption,” said a statement on the ICAC website. It did not identify them by name. Another Sun Hung Kai senior executive and four others had been arrested earlier on the same case, the statement said.

Separate cable news footage showed Raymond Kwok and the lawyer for Thomas Kwok entering the ICAC headquarters.

Sun Hung Kai has built a reputation as a developer of some of the city’s most expensive properties since its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. Along with many luxury apartment blocks along the base of Victoria Peak and harborside highrises, its projects have included the International Commerce Center on Kowloon, Hong Kong’s tallest building.

The company had disclosed 10 days ago that Sun Hung Kai board member and top executive for planning and land acquisition Thomas Chan Kui-yuen had been arrested for suspected bribery.

Trading was suspended Thursday on Sun Hung Kai Properties shares and on those of two subsidiaries mobile phone company SmarTone Telecommunications and data-centre operator SUNeVision Holdings. Raymond Kwok, the chairman of all three entities, was the only person to be suspended from the boards of the three firms. Sun Hung Kai shares had fallen 1.51% before trading was suspended. SUNeVision was down 0.88%. SmarTone had jumped 2.2% before the suspension.

The charges appear to stem from transactions that took place between 2005 and 2007 as that was the period when Hui had been chief secretary.