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SCMP Reporter

HONGKONG parents are recruiting estate agents to act as legal guardians for children as young as 13 living on their own in Vancouver.

 The agents provide a minimal level of supervision and the practice has led to some children joining street gangs or being left open to extortion rackets run by triads.

  Hongkong parents who commute to and from Canada often spend between eight and 10 months away from their new homes and children, who are left there to study.

  They employ an estate agent, usually the one who sold them their house, as a legal guardian in order to escape Canada's tough laws regarding youngsters being left home alone.

  The agents are well paid and complete all the necessary paperwork to protect them from being challenged by the courts.

  It has become a common phenomenom in Vancouver where schoolchildren of 15 and 16 are often left to look after themselves, as well as a younger brother or sister of nine or 10.

  They are usually left with plenty of money, expensive BMWs or American sports cars and the keys to huge five-and six-bedroom houses in suburbs such as Richmond, a few miles from the city centre.

  In one recent case where social workers visited a 15-year-old living home alone, they found no food in the house except dozens of pot noodles.

  Another instance involved a 15-year-old who didn't even have an estate agent to keep an eye on him. Social workers contacted his parents in Taiwan and told them what they were doing was illegal and unless they were prepared to live with the child he would be taken into care.

 In all such known cases either one or both of the parents have flown to Canada to be with their child.

  Youngsters living luxurious lifestyles on their own in Vancouver are targeted by well-established triad organisations who either extort money or seek to recruit them.

  Blackmail is used to frighten the children with the gangsters threatening violence or to damage the property unless they agree to take part in some criminal activity, such as car theft or house breaking.

  The youngsters find themselves enjoying the lifestyle and rewards and begin to spin into a rapid decline of missing school and hanging around in pool halls.

  Running drugs can be the next step and they are then used to recruit more schoolchildren.

   Mr Tony Carrigan of the Richmond District School Board, said: ''This is happening more and more and we are very concerned about it.

  ''The Ministry for Social Services has been informed and they are investigating, but if the paperwork says they have a legal guardian, even if it is a real estate agent who may go to the house once a week, there's not much they can do.''   Teachers and school administrators have been briefed on what to look for in children who may have joined gangs and the local police have introduced school liaison officers in an attempt to control the growing gang influence.



Scandal as home alone kids fall prey to triad extortion rackets