Feng shui master Tony Chan jailed for forging Nina "Little Sweetie" Wang's will

Tony Chan, who claims to be the former lover of quirky billionaire Nina Wang, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after a Hong Kong court found him guilty of forging her will.

This photo taken in the early 1990s shows Asia's former richest woman, the late Nina Wang , with feng shui master Tony Chan. Source: AFP

Bartender-turned-feng shui master Tony Chan had claimed to be the sole beneficiary of Nina Wang's $US13 billion ($14.2 billion) estate, which she inherited after the kidnapping and disappearance of her property mogul husband.

A court had ruled in 2010 - three years after Wang's death - that a will in Chan's possession was fake and after more than 20 hours of deliberation, a jury on Thursday found him guilty of forging the document.

Sentencing the 53-year-old, judge Andrew Macrae described his conduct as "shameless and wicked as well as borne of unparalleled greed".

"Forgery of a will is particularly nasty and insidious," said Judge Macrae, as the deceased "can't answer back".

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"You are no doubt a clever, and no doubt beguiling charlatan," the judge said, describing his actions as "cruel and egregious".

Chan lowered his head into his hands when the sentence was read out before a courtroom packed with reporters, and smiled as he left the dock.

The sensational case has for years gripped the former British colony and generated blanket media coverage, with Chan often cast as a fraudster who duped Wang by promising to find her kidnapped husband and cure her of cancer.

Much of the case revolved around Chan's claims that he and Wang were lovers and that she promised to leave him everything. During the trial, his lawyers showed a home video of the pair in a passionate embrace.

But the court heard that Chan was a grasping chancer who, despite earning $HK3 billion ($425 million) for his feng shui services from Wang, was not content and wanted to take over her entire business empire and fortune.

"Never once... has there been the slightest remorse for your conduct," Judge Macrae said, adding that the forgery was "extremely well planned".

Wang, once Asia's richest woman, was known for her thrifty nature and outlandish dress sense, and was nicknamed "Little Sweetie" for her pigtail hairstyle. She died of cancer in 2007 aged 69, triggering a bitter public feud over her fortune.

Wang's husband Teddy, who started the Chinachem Group property empire, was abducted in 1990 and declared legally dead in 1999. His body has never been found.

His disappearance kicked off a heated legal battle between Wang and her father-in-law for control of the Chinachem Group. She eventually won the case just two years before her own death in 2007.

After Chan lost his legal battle to the estate, the court ruled it would be passed onto the billionaire's charity the Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which is run by her siblings.

The court had ruled in 2010 that the will in Chan's possession was a "highly skilled simulation", siding with the charity's claim to the estate based on an earlier will.

Chan had built a career advising clients including Wang on feng shui, an ancient Chinese belief system based on harnessing natural and spiritual energies.

But earlier this year he renounced the practice for Christianity, calling feng shui the work of the devil and changing his name to Peter, the South China Morning Post reported.

Chan had said he was not afraid of going to jail.

"Since I have received the greatest salvation... other things don't matter to me anymore," he was quoted as saying in March in reference to his religious conversion.

Chan's lawyer Andrew Kan did not respond to questions about whether he would appeal the sentence.