Hong Kong star Keung To, a member of the popular Cantopop boyband Mirror, has been fined HK$2,200 after pleading guilty to careless driving and two other traffic offences involving two different vehicles last year.

Keung, 26, did not appear at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Monday due to “work” commitments, his lawyer told Principal Magistrate David Cheung, according to local media. The lawyer entered a guilty plea to a count of careless driving on Keung’s behalf, while the star admitted to two other traffic offences in writing.

Keung was accused of careless driving at around 4.14am on November 28 on Caine Road in Mid-Levels. He crashed the front left of his vehicle into a 0.5-metre-long barrier, but no injuries were reported.

The star told police officers at the scene that he had been reaching for a cap in the back seat with his left hand while driving at the time of the crash.

His lawyer said the star, who had no prior traffic offence record, was remorseful and had vowed to improve his driving, adding that Keung also pledged to compensate for the damage to the barrier.

Cheung accepted that the offence resulted from a momentary mistake and imposed a HK$1,000 fine.

The court also heard that, shortly after midnight on December 23, Keung was photographed running a red light at the intersection of Shing Sai Road and Sai Cheung Street in Kennedy Town. The vehicle involved was different from the one in the November incident.

Police found that Keung held a probationary driving licence, which is valid until August 20 this year. However, red-light camera footage showed that Keung had failed to display a “P” plate at the rear of his vehicle.

Under Hong Kong law, drivers on probation must display such a plate at both the front and rear of their vehicle.

Authorities charged Keung with one count of “failure to comply with traffic signals” and another count of “driving a vehicle without properly displaying a ‘P’ plate.” Magistrate Cheung imposed a HK$1,200 fine for the two offences.

A mainland Chinese woman has been acquitted of fraud over allegedly using a fake academic degree to obtain Hong Kong’s Top Talent visa, after a magistrate accepted the possibility that her agent made the false application.

Magistrate Raymond Wong found Xu Lina, 36, not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at the Shatin Magistrates’ Courts on Monday, according to local media.

The prosecution accused Xu of conspiring with a man surnamed Sun to defraud the director of the Immigration Department and other staff in her application for the city’s Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) visa by falsely claiming she held a bachelor’s degree from the University of Technology Sydney. Xu also applied for dependent visas for her husband and three children.

The defendant, who pleaded not guilty, told the court last month that she was deceived by Sun, her mainland agent in handling the visa application, to whom she paid around HK$520,000. While Xu wanted to apply for a Category A visa, which only requires a HK$2.5 million income from the past year, Sun filed her application for a Category B visa, which also demands a degree from a “top university.”

The magistrate said on Monday that Xu and her husband appeared to have met the Category A income threshold, given that the couple purchased a home in Shenzhen in 2023 with a single HK$5.4 million instalment.

Wong also noted that the phone number, email, residential addresses and even the signature on Xu’s TTPS application form did not belong to her, pointing to the possibility that the agent filled out the online application.

It was possible that the agent may have “secretly” applied for a Category B visa for a higher fee and kept Xu in the dark, with her believing she was submitting a Category A application, Wong said.

The magistrate criticised Xu for never checking the application materials herself after paying Sun the fee and passing on her documents.

During the trial last month, Xu said neither she nor her husband held a bachelor’s degree. Her husband is a businessman, while she is a full-time housewife. Sun, the agent, disappeared after her husband told him of her arrest on April 16, 2025, she added.

Hong Kong introduced the TTPS in December 2022 to attract more high earners and graduates from top universities amid a wave of emigration. The government keeps a list of recognised “top universities,” which currently numbers 199.

HKFP reported in early 2025 that, with a lower threshold than other talent programmes, the TTPS now contributes to a major share of work visas in Hong Kong.

According to the Immigration Department, as of December 2025, the authority had approved more than 120,000 visas under the TTPS. Most of the visa holders are mainland Chinese.