Ex- Hong Kong Banker Jailed Over $470K Crypto Bribes and $1.6B in Fake Credit Documents

A Hong Kong court has imposed a four-year prison sentence on a former retail banker who accepted more than US$470,000 in Tether (USDT) to lend the appearance of legitimacy to forged standby letters of credit and related documents with a combined face value exceeding US$1.6 billion.

Lam Chun-yin, 32, previously worked as a relationship manager in the consumer banking division at the Causeway Bay branch of China Construction Bank (Asia).

His official duties involved serving individual retail customers.

He had no authority to process business credit facilities or letters of credit, and the bank never assigned him those functions.

On 18 September 2026, the District Court sentenced him after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for an agent to accept advantages.

Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung described the offending as more serious than typical comparable cases because it involved fabricated bank instruments that could damage Hong Kong’s standing as an international financial centre and expose the bank to substantial potential losses.

The judge began with a six-year starting point and reduced the term by one-third to reflect the guilty plea, arriving at four years. He also ordered restitution of about HK$3.7 million—the Hong Kong-dollar equivalent of the bribes—to CCB (Asia).