HONG KONG, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- A 24-year-old man was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment after the conviction of one count of " Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception"in relation to a caseof mortgage fraud in District Court on Monday.

    In September 2002, the defendant made a mortgage application for an amount of 926,820 HK dollars (119,412 US dollars) to a bankin order to finance the purchase of a residential property at Tai Po Center for a purchase price of 1 million HK dollars (128,841 USdollars), according to a Police press release.

    In support of his mortgage loan application, the defendant submitted a letter of employment and four Mandatory Provident Fund(MPF) records to the bank, showing that he had been employed as a programmer from September 2001 with a monthly salary of 25,900 HK dollars (3,337 US dollars).

    Police Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) inquiries revealed that the MPF records provided by the defendant were false, as the defendant had never registered in the MPF scheme and contributed to the MPF provider.

    On Oct. 31, 2002, the mortgage from the bank was drawn down butthe defendant defaulted to meet the mortgage repayments after making nine monthly installments to the bank.

    The property was later repossessed by the bank by a civil litigation and sold in May 2004. The financial loss of the bank was 150,648 HK dollars (19,409 US dollars) as of June 30, 2005.

    On June 16, 2004, the defendant was arrested by CCB officers athis home. He was later charged with "Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception".

    The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge Monday in the District Court and sentence was meted out. Enditem