In a major crackdown on corruption among those bidding for contracts to repair buildings, the Hong Kong authorities arrested 50 individuals tied to a bid-rigging and bribery syndicate. The operation targeted fraudulent practices across 27 housing complexes, with affected contracts estimated to be worth nearly HK$500 million.
Those arrested — aged between 24 and 77 — include the suspected ringleader and core operatives, several of whom are believed to have ties to triad groups, officials said.
The two-day operation, conducted on Aug 26 and 27, involved searches at 39 locations, including the offices of contractors and consulting firms as well as the residential addresses of the suspects, and the seizure of project documents and accounting ledgers related to the maintenance work under investigation. Investigators also raided illicit venues that were suspected of being operated by triad-affiliated individuals.
The Competition Commission’s inquiry covers 23 estates and buildings in eight districts across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories, with the contracts in question thought to be valued at approximately HK$300 million.
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The investigation was triggered following a search in August 2025 in relation to the maintenance of a private housing estate in Kowloon City.
Analysis of the evidence uncovered during the search led the commission to suspect the syndicate of rigging the bidding process on multiple projects by providing its members with price instructions — known in the trade as “homework” — to skew the bid prices in their favor.
The syndicate is also believed to have worked in concert with other bid-rigging cartels in some tenders, with middlemen helping to arrange for contractors in each group to submit bids in an attempt to improve their odds of winning the contracts.
The commission stated that the alleged practices amount to bid-rigging, market sharing, price fixing and the exchange of competitively sensitive information, and are in breach of Hong Kong’s Competition Ordinance.
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The Independent Commission Against Corruption’s investigation, meanwhile, focused on three major maintenance projects — in Eastern District, Wan Chai, and Yau Tsim Mong. The total value of the associated contracts added up to nearly HK$200 million.
The case was opened following public complaints about alleged corruption in building repairs, according to the ICAC.
The ICAC said the contractor involved is suspected of offering bribes to project consultants and members of owners’ corporations in return for securing the contracts for the three building renovation projects.
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The investigation also found that the contractor’s previous convictions had been expunged from tender evaluation reports, easing its path to winning the bids, and that major maintenance projects were broken down into smaller packages to bypass the need for approval from homeowners.
In another building-repair case, the Hong Kong Police Force arrested three local men — a construction firm director, a structural engineer, and a contractor director — over an alleged conspiracy to use false documents.
The three suspects are accused of filing 13 falsified completion certificates with the Buildings Department between July and August 2022 for minor works at 13 flats in a Hong Kong Island housing estate. The documents carried the signature of a registered inspector, but investigators discovered that the inspector in question had died prior to the dates on which his signature appears on the documents.
Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com
