Eight months’ jail for beating facial recognition system in $250,000 commercial complex construction wage fraud

A foreman of a contractor of a commercial complex construction project, among eight defendants entering guilty pleas following ICAC’s prosecution, was today (September 15) sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts for falsifying the attendance records of workers by altering the facial images registered with the facial recognition system at the construction site to defraud the contractor of wage payments totalling over $250,000.

Tang Yu-ching, 44, former assistant general foreman of Sunnic Engineering Limited (Sunnic), earlier pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud, contrary to section 16A (1) of the Theft Ordinance.

In sentencing, Magistrate Mr Gary Chu Man-hon said the present case was serious in nature that the defendant had conspired with others to deceive his employer, resulting in a heavy blow to the local employment market and workers’ morale, and undermining Hong Kong’s reputation as a graft-free city. The magistrate took a starting point of 12 months’ imprisonment and reduced the jail term to eight months, having considered the defendant’s guilty plea.

Seven other former employees of Sunnic, namely a foreman, Chan Tin-hon; a site administration officer, Lai Yu-kiu; and five construction workers, Chiu Kim-wan, Choi Yun, See Kwok-shing, Johnny Chong Kam-hung and Mak Chi-kin; aged between 35 and 58, earlier pleaded guilty to the six counts of fraud. The case was scheduled for September 30 for sentence.

The ICAC investigation stemmed from a corruption complaint. The court heard that in June 2021, Sunnic was engaged as the main contractor of the construction project of a commercial complex in Tsim Sha Tsui. Tang and Chan, respectively the assistant general foreman and foreman of Sunnic, were responsible for supervising the operation of the construction site of the project.

Workers of the project were required to register their facial images with the facial recognition system for accessing the site. They were also required to scan their faces for taking attendance when reporting on and off duty. Based on the attendance records, Sunnic would calculate and release wage payments each month. Lai was authorised to operate the system at the material time.

The court heard that between December 2022 and January 2023, Tang had referred six construction workers, including Chiu, Choi, See, Chong and Mak, to work at the site as general workers. Facial images of the six workers were registered in the facial recognition system by Chan.

The relevant attendance records showed that the six workers had respectively worked at the site for 36 days to 43 days, leading to Sunnic’s subsequent release of wage payments totalling over $250,000 to a subcontractor. But ICAC enquiries revealed that Tang had told the workers that they were not required to work at the site and the wage payments were eventually passed to Tang and Chan.

The ICAC investigation revealed that Tang had arranged Chan, with the assistance of Lai, to alter the facial images of the six workers registered with the facial recognition system by replacing them with Chan’s facial image so as to falsify the workers’ attendance records by scanning Chan’s face.

Sunnic rendered full assistance to the ICAC during its investigation into the case.

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Ken Yip.