Jail for $52.5m property fraud
Developer is one of a quartet charged in the mortgage deception case
Aproperty developer who bribed a banker and used friends, family, staff and fake names to get more than $50 million worth of mortgages has been jailed for four years and seven months.
Kang Huang, 49, pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges in the High Court at Auckland before Christmas.
He is one of a quartet charged in a Serious Fraud Office case, with the remaining defendants due to go to trial later this month.
Justice Graham Lang, when sentencing Huang yesterday morning, described him as the instigator of a “sophisticated and premeditated” scheme that ran over three years.
It involved loans of $52.5m, 57 applications for finance, more than 70 Auckland and Hamilton properties and a $7000 kickback to a banker who approved some loans.
That banker was due to be charged in the case but left the country before any charges were laid. He is believed to be in China.
Huang operated a construction business in New Zealand for 20 years that built residential homes.
These developments relied on outside money and Huang found it was too expensive to fund the operation via finance companies because they charge more for commercial lending than banks do for loans to residential home buyers.
Huang adopted a strategy of getting finance from three banks — ANZ, BNZ and another whose details are suppressed.
To get the banks to lend money he forwarded loan applications in the name of relatives, friends and employees, Justice Lang said.
In some instances he provided fake identities to get finance.
The banks were also given false employment and income details of these borrowers and Huang arranged for his company to pay back the loans in such a way so that the banks wouldn’t get suspicious.
All but $394,000 of the $52m has since been repaid and ANZ is believed to be pursuing one of Huang’s employees for that money because the loan was in her name.
“The fact that so few loans resulted in a loss is a direct result in my view of all of your activities occurring in a rising market. This meant that properties were almost invariably worth more than what they were purchased for when they were sold,” Justice Lang said yesterday.
“This is a fortuitous result that is not attributable in any way to you,” the judge told Huang.
“At any stage the housing market could have fallen and that would have exposed all of the borrowers to the potential of claims from lenders.”
Justice Lang said that many of the people whose names were on loan applications didn’t know they were acquiring property and the mortgage liability associated with it.
While Huang’s offending was not motivated by greed in the traditional sense, Justice Lang said it forced the banks to unknowingly become involved in commercial lending without them having the necessary protection of higher interest rates.
When commenting on the $7000 kickback that Huang paid, the judge said this conduct could not be tolerated. It amounted to a form of “bribery and corruption” that this country was largely free from, Lang said.
After taking into account the significance of Huang’s offending, and giving him credit for his previous good character, remorse, and guilty plea, he sentenced the 49-year-old to four years, seven months jail.
Huang must serve two years, three months of that sentence before he is eligible for parole. Huang’s coaccused have pleaded not guilty.
The three defending the case include Huang’s wife, Yan (Jenny) Zhang, also known as Kang Xu. She is facing charges for obtaining by deception. Lawyer Gang (Richard) Chen is also facing charges for obtaining by deception.
The third defendant is former bank worker Zongliang (Charly) Jiang who is facing a Secret Commissions Act charge of accepting gifts and charges for obtaining by deception.