Hong Kong: tailor's touts convicted of corruption

"Hello, sir. Tailor for you sir." Every few steps, tourists in the TST district of Kowloon side, Hong Kong are pestered by touts. The Indian touts (they are almost all Indians) will go so far as to cross the road and walk in front of a target's companion, perhaps even grabbing his arm.

Later, Africans come out to try to sell fake watches, again approaching their targets abruptly.

For visitors who take refuge in their hotel, however, Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption has some bad news: whilst the techniques are different, that is no sanctuary.

But the case of five former staff at the Marco Polo Gateway hotel close to the Star Ferry has much wider implications.

Describe them how you will, concierge, bell captain, guest relations officers (no, not that kind of GRO) are well known for taking "commissions" for fixing tickets, tours and all sorts of other services. And so it will come of no surprise to most travellers that Baron Kay's Tailor in Mody Road paid hotel staff for introductions. Baron Kay is a Chinese company.

That's not how ICAC sees it, and the Court agrees.

Wong Hing-Cheung, 60, Yeung Wing-Wai, 32, both former guest relations agents of The Marco Polo Gatewayand Cheng Chi-Chiu, 59, and Leung Siu-Ho, 45, both former bell captains plus Pan Wai-man, 43, former guest relations supervisor of the hotel have all been convicted of receiving illegal commissions. They were paid in cash in plain white envelopes at irregular intervals, ICAC told the Court.

The hotel fully co-operated with the investigation in which it was learned that the hotel had an express policy of prohibiting its staff from soliciting or accepting advantages in the course of the hotel's business. And providing honest recommendations is, the hotel considers, an important part of the job of the staff concerned.

Each claimed to have received about HKD1,000 (about GBP70) over a period of some 18 months, and it was claimed by four of them that the fifth, their supervisor, had instructed them on what to do.

All have been jailed and ordered to pay to the hotel the sum HKD1,000. Pan was sentenced to three months' jail in the light of his role as organiser and the others were jailed for two months, the Magistrate Ivy Chiu Yee Mei saying that these are serious offences and therefore must be met with a custodial sentence.

Related cases are outstanding against the owners of Baron Kay and several others, including a former concierge from The Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong's grandest. Also charged is the accounts clerk in the tailors' shop who is also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by destroying documentary evidence.