Former Hong Kong champion horse racing trainer Brian Kan has been charged with corruption for allegedly offering a HK$130,000 ($17,000) bribe to a village representative to buy his vote.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption said Kan, 73, was charged Friday with engaging in corrupt conduct in an election.
Kan is alleged to have offered the bribe to a village representative in February when he unsuccessfully ran in a village election in Sheung Shui in the rural northern New Territories, close to the border with mainland China.
“It is alleged that the defendant, without reasonable excuse, offered $130,000 to another village representative of the Sheung Shui district as an inducement to vote for him at the election,” the ICAC said in a statement.
The anti-corruption agency launched an investigation after receiving a complaint about vote-buying ahead of the election in March, the South China Morning Post reported.
The 46 village representatives voted among themselves for who would sit on the central executive committee.
Kan was released on bail and will appear in court on Tuesday.
The Post described Kan, a five-time champion trainer, as “the most influential horse trainer of his generation” and a powerful figure in the New Territories.
It said he had 844 winners during his 25 years as a horse trainer.
The charge of corrupt conduct carries a maximum fine of HK$500,000 and up to seven years in jail, the paper said.
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