It has all the twists of a popular soap opera. The good thing is the story is virtually writing itself – and only God knows what the ending will be.
We are talking about Wilson Fung Wing-yip, a relatively unknown former government official until two weeks ago, when it was reported that his wife, Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, engaged in a property swap with Cheyenne Chan, a sister-in-law of Macau casino king Stanley Ho Hung-sun.
Fung reportedly signed a couple of documents related to the transaction, on Chan’s behalf.
After a week of media stalking the juicy story, Fung said on Facebook that his wife did not know about the “dealing between myself and Ms. Chan”.
He deleted the post after an hour.
At almost the same time, his wife dropped her surname Fung and reverted to her maiden surname Ching.
She changed her status on Facebook to single and removed most of her family photos from the social media platform.
We cannot help thinking about the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which each member of a married couple is surprised to learn that his/her spouse is an assassin hired to kill him/her.
The film’s leading actors, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, later became husband and wife in real life and are now allegedly fighting over custody of their four adopted children in a possible divorce.
So does Betty really know about his husband’s “dealing” with Cheyenne?
We are not sure yet, but what we know is they are trying to tell everyone on Facebook that they are splitting up.
Wilson’s apology and admission sets up evidence that Betty had no knowledge of the dealing, which could get her off the hook for a potential conflict of interest in the two-for-one Happy Valley-for-Mid Levels property transaction.
Betty has maintained all along that she left the transaction to a property agent and did not know who the other party was.
Wilson, acting on behalf of Chan, recently signed a property contract, and they had three helicopter rides together (possibly in a helicopter service Cheyenne owns and for which Wilson renewed the service contract for a shuttle service between Hong Kong and Macau when he was responsible for aviation affairs at the former Economic Development and Labour Bureau a decade ago).
The weekend’s revelations hinted that Wilson and Chan might have more than just a business relationship.
And that, coupled with Betty’s taking off her wedding ring and changing back to her single status on Facebook, explains why Betty would not know about their secret “dealing”.
Only time will tell whether it is a planned, or a true defence, in Betty’s case, but it would be interesting to see how such evidence from Facebook would be presented in court.
We only know that Wilson is on leave from the Airport Authority, and that Betty, the permanent secretary for home affairs, is said to be on sick leave.
But that’s far from the end of the story: grab a chair and stay for the show.
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