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SCMP Reporter

For two astonishing years George Tan Soon-gin had the Midas touch. His Carrian empire epitomised Hong Kong's image as a wheeler-dealer city where mind-boggling fortunes could be made overnight.

  But yesterday the former tycoon looked a forlorn, gaunt and broken man as he sat in the dock after finally being brought to justice.

  Tan's surprise admission to a US$238 million fraud comes 14 years after the collapse of Carrian.

  Since then several key players have died. Others have absconded, retired or ended up behind bars.

  In the early 1980s Tan was Hong Kong's most glamorous businessman. His empire was born out of, and fuelled by, the real estate boom.

    As Tan, 63, sat in the dock yesterday it was difficult to picture him as a high-powered mover and shaker. Doctors told the court how Tan had been plagued by health problems which had left him with mild dementia, paranoia and depression. He had a heart attack in 1989 and a stroke in 1992 which left him with a limp.

  Tan, who is in custody in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, probably has less than three years to live.

  Asked outside court to sum up the man behind Hong Kong's biggest corporate crash, one insider described him as 'the biggest thief of all time'.

  But a senior executive of one merchant bank was not so sure: 'He was a smart cookie. You wonder whether he was a crook from day one or whether he became a crook as problems piled up around him. The Alan Bond comparison can be made. But maybe no one will ever know.'  One analyst likened Carrian to a shooting star, another to 'something launched by Nasa'. The rocket took off spectacularly in 1979 with two headline grabbing deals.

  First Tan stunned the real estate world when he bought property development company Mai Hon Enterprises for HK$700 million. He renamed it Carrian Investments Limited and used it to buy Gammon House, now Bank of America Tower, for HK$998 million.

  Seven months later he resold it for an astronomical HK$1.68 billion.

  Tan continued with an astonishing series of back-to-back real estate deals seemingly involving stupendous fortunes from a bottomless treasure chest.

  Carrian's share price went from 40 cents in 1979 to HK$7.8 in mid-1981. By the end of the year it was the seventh largest company in Hong Kong.

  Tan diversified by taking over Hong Kong's fourth largest shipping fleet Grand Marine and insurance group China Underwriters.

  He had interests in a Japanese film company, commercial property in Singapore, an office and shopping centre in California and joint ventures in Australia and New Zealand.

  Tan was in the restaurant business, tourism and even pest control. Ironically the Carrian travel agency gave away T-shirts decorated with monkeys and the slogan 'No monkey business'.

  Shortly before Carrian's collapse Tan boasted how he had 33,000 employees across three continents, a shipping crew of 8,000 in ports all over the world and 35,000 to 40,000 shareholders.

  His tour groups took 700 people on holiday every day. His coaches and school buses ferried up to 30,000 children and workers to schools and factories. His food concerns made 10,000 breakfasts and lunches.

  Another subsidiary owned a fleet of Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, 200 coaches and 464 taxis.

  During Carrian's heyday rumour was rife about the source of the company's millions. Some whispered it came from the Marcos family, others from Middle East sheiks. Tan appears to have done little to dispel these fantasies. But when the company crashed with debts of HK$8 billion it emerged the Carrian empire had depended on bank loans rather than any mystery money. Tan's timing was perfect. Carrian's launch coincided with the arrival of scores of foreign banks in the territory all desperate to do business.

  Most notable of these was Bumiputra Malaysia Finance Ltd (BMFL), the Hong Kong arm of Bank Bumiputra. Bumiputra, which means sons of the soil, was established to help working Malays. The Malaysian Government was embarrassed to find the bank had loaned US$850 million to Chinese property speculators in Hong Kong. Another key lender was the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, whose solid reputation must have encouraged others to invest.

  Investigators believe the bank loaned a similar sum over the years. Tan's empire crashed with the collapse in property prompted by jitters over the future of Hong Kong.

  But bankers were keen not to force the group into liquidation for fear it would depress prices further. There were a number of restructuring plans to bail the conglomerate out. However, Carrian's fate was sealed in July 1983 when BMFL auditor Jalil Ibrahim was found murdered in a banana grove in Tai Po. He had been strangled and his body dumped in a suitcase. Ibrahim, 35, had been sent to Hong Kong when Carrian was on the point of collapsing and threatening to take the bank with it. In a personal file found by police, Ibrahim had written: 'The bank has been used and commissioned to make money for political ends . . . why should the country suffer because of their greed? 'I am just a small part of the deception. I want no more to lie and betray the bank or my family.' It was Ibrahim's murder which sparked the investigation into BMFL and opened up the Carrian can of worms. But Ibrahim's death was not the only scandal. In September police raided Carrian's solicitors, Deacons.

  Six months later the body of senior Deacons partner John Wimbush, 46, was found at the bottom of his swimming pool. A concrete manhole cover was around his neck. Wimbush's death was ruled suicide. He had just returned from Hong Kong to face questions by the Commercial Crime Bureau concerning deals relating to Carrian. When police laid additional fraud charges against Tan the following month Wimbush was still named as a co-accused.

 If the origins of Carrian's money are still a bit of a mystery, so is the former tycoon's background. He has given few interviews, has never talked about his wife and three daughters, and has doggedly refused to have his picture taken.

  Tan was born of Hokkien parents in Sibu, Sarawak. He trained as a civil engineer and worked in Singapore as a building contractor during the 1960s. He moved to Hong Kong in 1972 where he was construction manager for members of the Chung family, whose Eda group is now in liquidation.

  In the mid-1970s Tan started buying cheap land in the New Territories before forming Carrian Holdings in 1977.

  The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is also puzzled as to how Tan managed to stay illegally in Hong Kong for 10 years.

  He arrived on a Singapore passport in 1972, but his citizenship was revoked in 1983. When he was arrested he was holding Tongan and Paraguayan passports.

  ICAC chief investigator Brian Carroll said: 'He didn't travel abroad. He told people he thought it was unlucky to travel, but now we know it was because he was an illegal immigrant. How he was able to remain at large is a mystery.'   For all his flamboyance in business, Tan liked to keep a low profile socially.

  One analyst said: 'He was not one to be out every night at nightclubs. He did not have a home on the Peak with a stable of Ferraris or drive around in a pink Rolls-Royce or wear lots of flashy jewellery. He was a down-to-earth high-flying businessman.'   But Tan did enjoy the trappings of a corporate lifestyle. He dressed well and showered clients with jewellery and gifts. He lived in a luxury villa in Yuen Long, drove a Mercedes 450 and Louis XIV furniture decorated his office.

  Thomas Heysek, a former aide, told how Tan bought and sold shares from an equally spacious second office known as the fung shui room.

  Adjoining the office was a tiny cubicle consisting of a bank of television screens displaying the Hong Kong stock exchange, the gold exchange and currency rates.

  Apart from his generosity with Rolex watches, Tan was also known for his art collection - although many felt his taste left a lot to be desired.

  Mr Heysek told how the tycoon would get associates to pick up paintings on trips to Europe. 'George acquired these works of art as one would buy meat at a butcher. He would refer to one wall costing him GBP25,000, another costing GBP40,000 or a side table on which lay GBP30,000 of art.

  'He would corner an unsuspecting visitor to our offices whom he learned would be in Europe saying 'Going to London? Here buy me $20,000 worth of art.' '   In the past 13 years Tan has kept out of the limelight. But businessmen contacted by the South China Morning Post said he was hovering in the background 'pulling strings'.

  Tan is believed to have had a hand in brokering the Nine Queen's Road Central deal in 1992. Insiders said he had led a normal business life for a number of years pending his trial and used an office at Hong Kong and Macau Holdings.

  Yesterday, his wife Kao Keng-wan was also in court, but would not talk.

   Thanks to his ill health, she may never see her husband as a free man again.



Time runs out for George Tan