Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has charged six people, including former Cyberport entrepreneurship director So Nga-lai, over alleged bribery and fraudulent subsidy applications tied to a government digital transformation programme. The ICAC said the case involves at least 400 suspicious applications and about HK$20 million in subsidies.
Although the case centers on Cyberport, home to Hong Kong’s official Web3 hub, the funds in question did not come from any blockchain- or Web3-specific allocation. They were tied to an SME digital transformation scheme.
Six charged on Oct. 12
According to the ICAC, the six defendants were charged on Oct. 12. One of them is So Nga-lai, Cyberport’s then entrepreneurship director, who has since left the organization. Cyberport is wholly owned by the Hong Kong government and hosts an official Web3 base with about 330 blockchain companies.
The agency said Cyberport served as the secretariat for the Digital Transformation Support Pilot Programme. During the period covered by the case, from October 2023 to January 2026, So was fully responsible for secretariat work, including reviewing subsidy applications and releasing funds. She was charged with one count of prescribed officer accepting an advantage, contrary to section 4(2)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.
Alleged benefits included flights, luxury bags and a phone
The ICAC said the provider of those benefits was Lam Yuen-lai, the person in charge of service vendor Find Solution Ai Limited. Investigators alleged So received several flight tickets for trips between Hong Kong and Thailand and Japan, several luxury handbags and a smartphone. In return, she allegedly halted an investigation into complaints made by applicants against Find Solution and accelerated the handling of applications involving the company.
The charge sheet shows the bribery allegation covers the period from Oct. 27, 2023 to Dec. 14, 2025. The listed items include more than one flight ticket, one handbag, two tote bags, one coin purse and one mobile phone.
Lam was separately charged with offering an advantage to a prescribed officer under section 4(1)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.
At least 400 applications under scrutiny
The programme was designed to help SMEs adopt ready-made digital solutions from registered service providers, including e-payment, online promotion and customer management tools. Companies were required to pay half of the cost, with the government covering the other half, subject to a cap of HK$50,000 per business.
Find Solution was one of the registered vendors and hired downstream sales agents to market its packages to businesses. Prosecutors alleged that Lam and four others falsely told Cyberport that multiple eligible companies had applied for subsidies, engaged Find Solution and fully paid their own share of the cost. That, the prosecution said, induced Cyberport to approve the applications and release the subsidized portion to the company.
The ICAC said it identified at least 400 applications tied to the case, involving about HK$20 million in subsidies. The conspiracy to defraud charge covers the period from Oct. 27, 2023 to Jan. 12, 2026. The charge sheet also names one alleged conspirator who is not among the six defendants in this case.
The earlier "Thunder" operation
In a Jan. 30 statement, the ICAC said its "Thunder" operation had led to the arrest of nine people. The agency said the supplier involved had submitted more than 1,000 applications involving about HK$50 million in subsidies. Of that amount, HK$31 million had not been released after the ICAC intervened.
The agency also said the group had hired sales agents who told SMEs they could help with applications for free, while allegedly inflating the cost of the proposed solutions. Six of the nine people arrested have now been charged.
Who was charged and what happened in court
The case is split into two strands: bribery and conspiracy to defraud.
The bribery side involves 59-year-old So and 39-year-old Lam.
Five people face conspiracy to defraud charges. Besides Lam, they include her 35-year-old younger brother Lam Kin-ho, the company secretary of Find Solution, and three downstream sales agents: Lee Yik-lun, 40, of Hong Kong Vision Enterprise, and Chan Hoi-chun, 31, and Tsang Wai-ping, 52, both of Xunda Square. So is the only one among the six defendants who previously worked at Cyberport.
The first hearing took place at Eastern Magistrates’ Courts before Magistrate Wong Ching-yu. Bail was set at two levels: HK$100,000 each for So and the Lam siblings, and HK$20,000 each for the three sales agents. As part of their bail conditions, they were barred from leaving Hong Kong and from contacting prosecution witnesses.
The prosecution asked for another 12 weeks to continue its investigation. The next hearing was set for Jan. 4, 2027. Prosecutors said they currently have 49 witnesses, including 14 ICAC officers, 12 video-recorded cautioned interviews totaling about 10 hours and 45 minutes, and about 3,000 pages of documentary material.
Cyberport’s role in Hong Kong Web3
Cyberport is Hong Kong’s official digital technology park, located in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island. In his February 2023 budget speech, the city’s financial secretary said Cyberport had established a Web3 base earlier that year and received HK$50 million to speed up development of the Web3 ecosystem. Since then, it has served as one of the government’s main platforms for that push.
A discussion paper submitted to the Legislative Council Panel on Information Technology and Broadcasting for its Oct. 12 meeting said the Cyberport community currently includes more than 2,400 information and communications technology companies. About 330 of them are in blockchain, accounting for roughly 14% and ranking fourth among six major categories.
Since its launch in 2023, the Web3 base has brought together companies whose founders come from Hong Kong, mainland China and 19 overseas countries and regions. The group includes one listed company, two unicorns and five licensed virtual asset trading platforms. In an external introduction published in June 2025, Cyberport named HashKey, HKVAX and HKbitEX as members of its community.
Cyberport has also distributed blockchain-related funding. The HK$50 million allocation for that area was fully used by March 2026. Through two proof-of-concept and pilot subsidy schemes, it supported more than 50 application cases spanning real-world asset tokenization, payments, cybersecurity and decentralized digital identity. Related education and promotional events drew nearly 450,000 attendances.
This case does not involve Web3-specific funding
The money involved here came instead from a separate HK$500 million allocation granted in 2023 for Cyberport to run a digital transformation programme covering four sectors: food and beverage, retail, tourism and personal services. The same Legislative Council discussion paper said the programme had received more than 14,000 applications and approved close to 8,800.
That paper did not mention the ICAC case. There is also no official information at this stage indicating problems with Cyberport’s blockchain subsidy programmes.
The ICAC said in January that its investigation had found no involvement by other Cyberport staff. A Cyberport spokesperson said at the time that, apart from one former employee who had already left, other staff had handled applications properly. Whether the six defendants are guilty remains subject to court proceedings.