Police watch as 'gangster' abducted

A suspected member of the 'Big Spender' kidnap gang is being held on the mainland after being snatched from a Kowloon street while under police surveillance.

Wu Man was bundled into a car by a group of men as he took an evening walk last week, a source said.

His abductors were understood to have crossed to the mainland where Wu was being held at an unknown location, the source said.

Police were understood to have been gathering intelligence after a tip-off that Wu, 39, was allegedly planning a kidnap either here or on the mainland, the source said. Days earlier, he had returned from a trip to Thailand.

The Security Bureau last night refused to confirm what it described as speculation.

Wu was acquitted on appeal with 'Big Spender' Cheung Tze-keung of being responsible for the world's biggest cash-in-transit robbery, at Kai Tak airport in 1991.

He is suspected by mainland and SAR authorities of being part of Cheung's kidnap and explosives gang, but was never arrested.

Cheung, 44, and four members of the gang were executed in Guangdong last December.

Last year, Wu was acquitted on charges of criminal intimidation, false imprisonment and possession of an imitation firearm after it was alleged he held a gun to the head of a man he thought was his wife's lover.