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Perseverance pays off
 CCB three: WDSIP Lee with Mr Chu and PC Tam |
Three Commercial Crime Bureau officers recently received accolades for their dedication and hard work in investigating a $30 million fraud case and bringing the offender to justice.
Woman Detective Senior Inspector Lee Suk-ping, Police Constable Tam Man-hoi and Treasury Accountant Chu Yau-wing were each awarded Commanding Officer's Commendations for their efforts.
In November 1997, a securities firm discovered a dubious loss of $30 million while checking accounts and called the Police.
Investigations revealed an accounting manager of the company, who also acted as a stockbroker for it, opened three accounts to trade in stocks in 1996 and occasionally made false entries in the accounts when loss was incurred, claiming the amount of the transactions concerned had been received. The false entries amounted to $30 million.
The investigation was extremely difficult as the company only reported the matter to Police long after the crime was committed. The offender and staff had by then left the company and forgotten the details of the false entries.
"The large volume of transaction records and the fact that staff who input records did not require entry of their names or passwords had also made the trace difficult," Mr Chu said. "In the face of the large number of transaction slips, we had to use every means to sift through them and identify the dubious transactions."
Some 62 transactions were found to be suspicious and their details tallied with slips found at the offender's home. She was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment.
The three officers unanimously attributed the investigation's success to teamwork.