CCTVs help solve 5 cases, arrest 8 suspects for robbery and theft

The closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras have once again been effective in helping to solve cases. In the past few days, the Police detected five cases of robbery, pickpocketing, burglary and construction site theft in North Point, Cheung Sha Wan, Sham Shui Po and Kwai Chung respectively, and arrested a total of eight suspects.

At 1.40 pm on July 18 this year, a man surnamed Cheung ( aged 63) reported that he was accosted by a woman on the street in North Point, who claimed to be able to provide him with special services and took him to the rear staircase of a tenement building at the junction of Chun Yeung Street in North Point Road. When Cheung took out his wallet to collect money, the woman grabbed the bag and fled. Police searched a large amount of CCTV footage and conducted an in-depth investigation to locate and arrest a woman surnamed Zhu ( aged 57) from the Mainland. She was arrested on Wednesday when she was leaving Hong Kong via the Lo Wu control point. Police recovered HK$3,200 in stolen money and a bag she was carrying when she committed the offense.

On July 27, police received a report that two teenagers were suspected of sneaking into a school in the area in the early hours of the morning in an attempt to commit a burglary. After tracking the case for several days and checking a large number of CCTV cameras in the vicinity, the police arrested the two teenagers, aged 15 and 16, in Kwai Chung Estate and Tai Wo Hau Estate respectively on 1 August and 2 August, and seized their clothes at the time of committing the crime.

On July 30, a woman at Nga Ying Chau Street in Tsing Yi reported that a man reached into her waistband bag from behind with the intention of pickpocketing, and the man failed and fled. After analyzing the CCTV footage, the police arrested three mainland men on August 2 at a hotel in Kwai Chung. The police seized about HK$32,000 in cash from the men. Preliminary investigation revealed that the three men were involved in a number of recent pickpocketing cases in the district.

On July 31, a taxi driver reported that after picking up a man at Fortune Street in Cheung Sha Wan, the passenger claimed that he would pay the fare with HK$1,000 notes. The taxi driver then took out cash from his shirt pocket and intended to pay for it, but the suspect snatched the cash and fled the scene. After checking and analyzing a large number of CCTV cameras in the area, the police were able to identify the suspect's appearance, clothing and escape route, and arrested him on the same night.

In addition, the police in Sham Shui Po, in response to the repeated theft of tools and materials from a construction site, searched a large number of CCTV footage in the vicinity and identified a male suspect, who was found to have climbed into the construction site to commit the crime on August 1. The suspect was arrested and a batch of tools and copper pieces were found in his backpack.