Lawyer Gang Chen and former banker Zongliang Jiang pictured at the start of their trial. Photo / Michael Craig
Lawyer Gang Chen and former banker Zongliang Jiang pictured at the start of their trial. Photo / Michael Craig
A lawyer and banker are challenging the punishments for their involvement in a "premeditated and prolonged" $54 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Gang (Richard) Chen appealed his conviction and sentence and Zongliang (Charly) Jiang, a former BNZ staffer, appealed his sentence when they appeared today in the Court of Appeal.
Justice Sarah Katz had sentenced Chen to a total of six years' imprisonment, while Jiang was jailed for four years and nine months last year in the High Court at Auckland.
She also imposed a minimum period of imprisonment of 50 per cent for both men.
Chen and Jiang were part of a quartet charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over 76 Auckland and Hamilton properties and suspicious mortgages, involving 57 loan applications and 110 transactions.
Auckland property developer Kang Huang and his wife, Kang Xu, were also convicted of the crimes.
Justice Katz said Huang was the "mastermind and instigator of the scheme" and used his property construction company LV Park to facilitate the "premeditated and prolonged" ruse.
The group used false information and documents, or withheld information from banks to obtain loans of more than $54m for the properties between December 2011 and October 2015.
Kang Huang, the mastermind of the scheme, was labelled by his wife's lawyer as a "megalomaniac". Photo / Michael Craig
The fraud also involved bribes of $7000 per transaction to two bankers - Jiang and former ANZ banker Peter Cheng - who approved the loans.
Jiang processed and approved about $18m in loan applications in exchange for kickbacks.
He was motivated by greed, Justice Katz said.
In the summary of her verdicts, Justice Katz found Chen acted as the "middleman" between Huang and Xu while also bribing his "inside contacts" at BNZ and ANZ.
A third overseas bank was used but its name is suppressed.
The losses from the scheme totalled $427,000.
The Court of Appeal heard today Jiang left BNZ midway through the scheme after the bank "began to think that something may have been amiss and recalled the loans", his lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade said.
"They wanted their money back."
Jiang's farewell from BNZ "wasn't on the best terms" and a non-disclosure agreement was signed, Kincade added.
After being targeted by a proceeds of crime seizure he has also "effectively lost everything", including his performance bonuses for the quantity of transactions he was processing, Kincade said.
The SFO also wanted to charge Cheng, however, he fled for China before court action could commence.
Crown lawyer Todd Simmonds argued that Justice Katz had reached the correct sentence.
He said Chen and Jiang were "trusted key players" in the scheme.
"The offending would not have occurred without their involvement," he said.
The Court of Appeal Justices Denis Clifford, Jillian Mallon and Christian Whata reserved their decisions.
Kang Xu was sentenced to 12 months' home detention. Photo / Michael Craig
After a three-month trial, which began in February last year, Justice Katz found Jiang guilty of all 26 charges he faced, including one representative charge for accepting bribes.
