Since it cleaned up Hong Kong’s police force, which had links to syndicated crime in the 1970s, the territory’s anti-corruption watchdog has built a world class reputation. According to Transparency International’s annual corruption ratings, Hong Kong ranks as the 12th cleanest on a list of 183 countries.
Yet the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong’s anti-graft agency, has long stayed away from one area of investigation – Hong Kong’s tycoons and the cosy land deals from which they benefit. In the past few years, as property prices have soared in the city, the agency’s hands-off approach has become increasingly untenable.
That changed in March, when the ICAC arrested the Kwok brothers, who control Hong Kong’s biggest property developer, and a former head of Hong Kong’s civil service, Rafael Hui. (They were all released on bail on the same day).