24 Arrested Over Alleged 'ding Rights' Fraud

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Friday said it had arrested 24 people suspected to be part of an alleged plot to illegally transfer ‘small house’ rights to a developer to build a large-scale property project.

The graft-buster said it had received complaints that some indigenous villagers, a number of middlemen and a developer had conspired to make false claims to the government when applying to build small houses in the New Territories under constitutionally-protected ‘ding’ rights.

It said some suspects had falsely claimed that they were the sole registered owners of specified land lots, and that they had made no arrangement to transfer their rights to build homes there to a developer.

The Small House Policy allows male indigenous villagers to build houses in the New Territories, but only on their own land.

The ICAC said the developer allegedly offered the indigenous villagers tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands dollars as part of the alleged plot to build what it described would have been a “sizeable” property development project for profit.

During the operation, the ICAC searched a number of premises, including the offices of the property developer and a law firm.