Couple named in $50m mortgage fraud

At least two of the four people who are being pursued by the Serious Fraud Office for their alleged involvement in a $50 million mortgage fraud have had previous brushes with the law.

Property developer Kang (Thomas) Huang, also known as Gang Wang, and his wife, Yan (Jenny) Zhang, also known as Kang Xu, are accused of fraudulently obtaining money to buy 76 properties in Auckland and Hamilton.

The couple’s name suppression lifted yesterday.

They are alleged to have been assisted by non-practising lawyer Gang (Richard) Chen and former bank employee Zongliang (Charly) Jiang.

The SFO alleges the defendants provided false information or documents or withheld information from either the BNZ or ANZ to obtain loans to buy properties in either Auckland or Hamilton.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty and will appear in the Auckland High Court later this year with a trial to start on February 26, next year, the SFO says.

Charges were laid in September last year.

FMA’s Stop Order against developer
Developer Mr Huang was behind now-defunct Green Gardens Finance Trust, which the Financial Markets Authority issued its first Stop Order against in July 2015.

The FMA said the company was illegally offering investments and the order was in response to concerns that the company offering debt securities.

It prohibited Green Gardens from offering, issuing, accepting applications for or advertising debt and accepting further contributions, investments or deposits for debt securities.

FMA regulation director Liam Mason said at the time, “Green Gardens Finance is offering investments illegally and this stop order requires the company to comply with the relevant laws and warns people not to give money to the company. It is an offence to fail to comply with a stop order.”

Lawyer suspended and censured
In April, lawyer Mr Chen was suspended for two years by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal after he failed to disclose five criminal convictions he had incurred over six years.

The tribunal said the convictions, all driving-related, were serious enough, let alone not disclosing them.

He was fined $5000, ordered to pay the Law Society costs of $10,125 and reimburse hearing costs of $2,271.

Before that, in July 2015 he was censured by the tribunal and fined $5000 for accepting money from a client and not paying it into a trust account for some months.

The charges
Mr Huang and his wife are both charged with “obtaining by deception,” while he is also charged with “dishonestly taking or using a document” and one Secret Commissions Act charge of “gifts to agent without consent.”

The lawyer, Mr Chen, is facing one representative charge of “gifts to agent without consent” and individual and representative charges of “obtaining by deception.”

The banker, Mr Jiang, is charged with one representative charge of “acceptance of gifts by agent” and individual charges of “obtaining by deception.”