Ten men and eight women aged 20 to 60 have been arrested for using other people's identity card numbers to apply for shares in initial public offering exercises.

A woman found her identity card number was on the list of successful applicants for an IPO exercise on the Stock Exchange website. She did not receive any share certificate but received a refund cheque instead.

Police found the identity card number was used in seven IPO exercises between October and December 2006. The culprits made a number of applications in each IPO exercise using their own names but similar identity card numbers with different addresses and occupations. The identity card numbers they used were fairly similar to their own numbers with only the fourth and fifth digits different.

If they failed to apply for the new shares, they could still get the refund as the cheques for refund only bore the identity card numbers of unsuccessful applicants with the fourth and fifth digits substituted with asterisks to protect personal data.