Undercover police plan to catch estate security guards snoozing
Undercover police officers are planning to sneak into public housing buildings in a territory-wide test of the alertness of security guards.
Those found to have neglected their duties face having their licences revoked. The disclosure was made by Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Ko Shek-cheong, regional crime prevention officer for Kowloon East.
He said security companies could also be punished if there was evidence of mismanagement leading to lax security.
Though such undercover operations have been conducted before, Chief Inspector Ko said this year would see the most extensive checkup on security at housing estates across Hong Kong. The operations will cover 383 buildings in 53 public estates in Kowloon East. The numbers for other districts were not available yesterday.
Chief Inspector Ko said a big concern was that burglars seemed to be targeting public housing estates because of lax security.
He said that out of 1,594 burglary cases in Kowloon East last year, 552 occurred in public housing estates, almost three times more than the 189 cases in private residential buildings.
'In theory, burglars would raid private buildings where residents are supposed to be richer,' he said. 'I believe the reason why there are more burglaries in public housing estates is because of relaxed security measures there, including [guards] sleeping on the job.
'In most estates residents would be at work during the day. So burglars would pick that time knowing their chances would be better.'
Chief Inspector Ko said police had contacted security companies over improving access control at entrances to housing estates and the undercover officers would test if these worked.
He reassured guards that their licences would not be automatically revoked unless there was evidence of serious neglect of duty under the Security Guard Services Ordinance.
