A former China Construction Bank (Asia) relationship manager, Lam Chun-yin, was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting more than $470,000 in Tether (USDT) to authenticate fraudulent bank documents, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption announced.
The 32-year-old worked at CCB (Asia)’s Causeway Bay retail branch and had no authority over commercial credit facilities or letters of credit. Between April and June 2022, Lam conspired with an employee of a fintech company and other associates to receive USDT worth roughly HK$3.7 million. In exchange, he illegally authenticated multiple false standby letters of credit and collateral letters with a stated value above $1.6 billion. A CCB Asia probe exposed 88 false letters of credit and two collateral letters that were used as guarantees for insurance-related investment transactions without authorization.
At sentencing, Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said the criminality was higher than in comparable cases because the forged documents undermined Hong Kong’s reputation as an international financial center and exposed the bank to significant potential risk. The court adopted a six-year starting point, reduced by one-third for the guilty plea, and ordered restitution of about HK$3.7 million to CCB (Asia). The ICAC noted that cryptocurrency was used to try to conceal bribe payments, but blockchain and exchange records still added identity and transaction trails. The agency has sought arrest warrants for other suspects, and the case adds to a wider crackdown on crypto-fueled corruption, including a South Korean exchange employee jailed for Bitcoin bribery and a cross-border crypto money-laundering bust involving arrests in the UAE and Sweden.
