Six people have been arrested on Thursday on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining more than HK$20 million from a government fund set up to help businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The six are three men and three women, aged between 20 and 45 years old, who are associated with four companies in the logistics, technology and media sectors.
They include a married couple, while the others are directors or employees of the companies involved.
Mok Lai-king, chief inspector at the commercial crime bureau, said the suspects had obtained the loans under the “Special 100% Loan Guarantee Scheme”, which was introduced in 2020 to alleviate the financial pressure faced by the city’s small and medium-sized enterprises.
Senior inspector Choy Kin-hang said the force will continue to follow the money trail.
Under the scheme, companies were allowed to borrow up to HK$9 million, provided their sales revenue for a specific month had decreased by at least 30 percent compared with the average of the previous three months.
The force also seized a number of bank documents, bank cards, checkbooks and mobile phones as well as electronic devices.