Hong Kong police are hunting at least two robbers who allegedly used a GPS tracking device to find and steal HK$260,000 (US$33,205) from a victim’s vehicle in the New Territories.
The victim, a 30-year-old watch company salesman, called police soon after 11pm on Monday when he returned to his seven-seater car on Town Park South Road in Yuen Long and found the windscreen and another window had been smashed.
He had parked the car there at about 9.30pm and then went to play football at a nearby playground.
According to police, a bag carrying HK$260,000 was stolen from his vehicle.
Officers combed the area and recovered the bag nearby, but the cash and his bank cards had been stolen.
A source familiar with the case said officers discovered a GPS tracker attached to the bottom of the vehicle.
He said the robbers might have targeted the victim after learning that he usually carried large amounts of business proceeds and used the GPS tracker to follow him.
A security camera captured two men loitering in the area before they stole the money from the car, according to the source. He said one of them acted as a lookout.
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The two suspects are thought to be aged between 20 and 30 and are about 1.7 metres (5.6 feet) tall, according to police.
Police are treating the case as “theft from vehicle”. So far, no arrests have been made. Detectives from the Yuen Long criminal investigation unit are following up on the case.
Between January and March this year, police handled 240 reports of thefts from vehicle, up 14.8 per cent from the 209 cases logged in the same period in 2022.
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According to police figures, reports of theft rose by 45 per cent to 5,340 in the first three months of 2023 from 3,678 cases in the same period last year.
The surge in theft cases earlier sparked a warning from the city’s Japanese consulate reminding its nationals to remain vigilant, keep an eye on their belongings and avoid using smartphones or listening to music while walking on the streets.
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