Thanks to the notification mechanism between the police and the hotel sector, the Judiciary Police (PJ) solved on Thursday a robbery within just an hour, in which the victim was bound up in a hotel guestroom for a short period of time and robbed of HK$210,000 in casino chips, PJ spokesman Cheong Kim Fong said during a special press conference on Friday.
The incident happened at a casino hotel in Zape on Thursday night, according to Cheong, when the female victim from the mainland met a man, aged 24, surnamed Liu, who was also from the mainland, in a casino. Both struck a deal to exchange casino chips worth HK$210,000 the victim had into yuan at Liu’s room, during which Liu delayed transferring yuan to the victim’s bank account several times. After a number of purportedly failed attempts by Liu to transfer the money to the victim’s account, he attacked the victim who was about to leave the room, threatening her by falsely claiming that he had a knife, pushing her down on the bed, gagging her with a towel, using a charging cable and shoelaces to tie her hands and feet and snatching HK$210,000 in chips from the victim.
Cheong noted that 10 minutes after Liu had left the room, the victim managed to untie herself and sought help from hotel security guards in the lobby, adding that within an hour of receiving the report from the victim, the Judiciary Police arrested Liu in the hotel, on whom PJ officers found HK$239,000 and 500 patacas in cash, but not the knife he had claimed to be in possession of, nor any other sharp weapons.
A PJ investigation showed, according to Cheong, that after the robbery, Liu gambled with the chips he had snatched from the victim in the hotel’s casino and won HK$130,000. Under questioning, Liu told the police that he had given HK$100,000 of the amount to a local woman for safekeeping.
Cheong said that the Judiciary Police later took the local woman to the PJ headquarters for questioning, during which she insisted that she was unaware of Liu’s involvement in the robbery. Cheong added that the Judiciary Police have filed a separate case against the local woman.
The Judiciary Police on Friday transferred Liu to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further investigation, facing charges of robbery and false imprisonment.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded robbery suspect to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape after Friday’s special press conference. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
