CRIME | Group caught pickpocketing in Senado Square

Aspect of yesterday’s police press conference

A group of three men, all Mongolian nationals, were caught operating a pickpocketing scheme around the Senado Square area, the Public Security Police Force announced yesterday in a press conference.
The trio was caught in a surveillance operation on the afternoon of November 21 intended at curbing theft in tourist areas. Agents became suspicious after catching the group repeatedly entering and exiting one of the souvenir shops in the Senado Square area.
The group was caught in the act while trying to pickpocket a tourist inside a shop. The method used was easy to spot as one of the men tried to steal items from inside the tourists’ bags while another alleged ring member would place a big bag in front as a camouflage and a third was in charge of keeping a lookout for any police or security guards.
Although the attempt was frustrated and they came out empty handed, the act was promptly spotted and the men were put under arrest.
Among their belongings police found a mobile phone and three suspicious items of clothing.
As they could not unlock the mobile phone (proving its ownership) and also could not prove that the clothing was theirs, they were taken into custody.
As the police later confirmed, the items of clothing belonged to a retail shop also in the same area, worth around HKD1, 500, that had been shoplifted.
A further search at the suspects’ residence revealed a bag made of aluminum foil and duct tape that the police suspect had been used to take clothing items out of the shops without triggering the alarms.
The suspects told the police that they were unaware of the provenance of the bags and they also denied the charges of theft over the items found.
They were transferred to the public prosecutions office yesterday morning.
Separately, the Judiciary Police revealed details of two cases of people caught committing crimes while trying to make “easy money.”
In the first case, a man went to a pawnshop to pawn a watch, which he obtained HKD35,000 for. Later, a shop employee found out that both the logo and the watch mechanism were fakes and pressed charges. The person who pawned the watch was caught on the evening of November 21 while trying to leave the territory from the outer harbor ferry terminal.
The suspect revealed afterwards to the police that the watch was given to him by a friend who requested help to pawn it for a reward of HKD5,000.
In the second case, a woman filed a complaint to the Judiciary Police over a person who presented her with an investment scheme to earn easy money in which she promptly invested HKD60,000.
After delivering the funds, she become suspicious and wanted to know more about the method but failed to contact the person who had suggested the scheme to her, subsequently notifying the authorities of her loss.