Federal Agents Arrest Kennedy School Student

FBI agents arrested a Kennedy School of Government (KSG) student Friday at Peabody Terrace on charges that he allegedly embezzled $3.35 million from a Hong Kong company.

The Hong Kong government charged 34-year-old Kenneth Kin-Yuen Fung, who is also known as Kenneth Chi-Keung Fung and Edward Fong, with 12 counts of theft and seven counts of false accounting records, according to documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.

The Hong Kong warrant for Fung’s arrest, issued on Dec. 21, 2001, describes his nationality as British and Canadian.

According to the KSG registrar’s office, Fung is registered there as Edward Fong, the same name he uses on his Canadian passport.

From February 1997 to March 1998, Fung served as chair and chief executive officer of Climax International Company Limited (CICL), a firm which specializes in the production and distribution of paper products and stationery, the documents said.

The complaints issued against Fung allege that he “dishonestly appropriated company funds” before and during his term as a CICL executive, from December 1996 to February 1998, by writing 12 company checks for personal use and issuing false accounting records.

In 1998, Fung fled to Singapore from Hong Kong, the records indicate.

After his arrest Friday, Fung appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joyce London, where the U.S. Attorney’s office argued that Fung was “likely to flee if released,” according to court papers.

London ordered that he be held pending an extradition hearing. For now, he will remain in federal custody in Massachusetts.

In the next 60 days, a federal judge will decide whether to extradite Fung to Hong Kong, according to Samantha Martin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

If sent to Hong Kong, Fung faces up to 10 years in jail for each of the 12 charges against him.

Although the U.S. Attorney and the FBI conducted the investigation, they notified the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) before they made the arrest, said Harvard University Police Department spokesperson Steven G. Catalano. HUPD assisted only as a liaison and played no role in the actual arrest, he said.

KSG officials declined to comment on Fung’s time at Harvard or his future with the institution.

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.