Halloween revellers in Lan Kwai Fong warned to watch their pockets
Light-fingered thieves are making Lan Kwai Fong their favourite haunt, statistics show
Halloween is a time for makebelieve scares, but revellers in the city's most celebrated bar area have been warned to beware of a real-life horror: pickpockets.
Thefts by light-fingered crooks are surging in Lan Kwai Fong as new bars and restaurants open, the security bureau said yesterday.
The number of reported cases there doubled to 63 in the first eight months of the year, from 31 in the same period last year.
This compares to an increase of just over a quarter on Hong Kong Island as a whole at a time when incidence of the crime is falling across the city overall.
"There was a … significant rise in pickpocketing cases in bars of Lan Kwai Fong," Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok told the Legislative Council yesterday.
Bar and bistro operators have also reminded party-goers to keep an eye on their property when crowds pack the area tonight for Halloween.
A restaurant operator in the area, who declined to be named, said pickpocketing had become "quite serious" of late.