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Niall Fraser

Police believe prostitutes using the date-rape drug Rohypnol may have drugged and robbed hundreds of unsuspecting drinkers in the Wan Chai bar district, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The death of a senior Finnish police official earlier this year forced police to launch a series of covert operations to crack down on the alarming trend.

The operations revealed how foreign visitors, mainly men, have been falling prey to an array of tricks by sex workers.

Chief Superintendent Kari Juhani Koivuniemi, 45, of Finland police, who was on official business in Hong Kong, died of a suspected heart attack on January 8 after a prostitute drugged him with Rohypnol before raiding his bank account.

His death was a serious embarrassment for the authorities, who tried to cover up the subsequent investigation for fear that it would tarnish the city's international reputation.

A senior police officer revealed for the first time this week that the inquiry had been upgraded to a murder investigation.

The disclosure came after the Sunday Morning Post obtained a copy of a confidential report detailing the circumstances of the officer's death and the modus operandi used by prostitutes to drug their victims.

Many of the women are from the mainland, the Philippines, Thailand and South America and are linked to a series of underworld syndicates operating in and around Wan Chai's girlie bars.

They are known to favour Rohypnol, also known as the date-rape drug, because it is fast-acting and causes the victim to black out for up to several hours, often waking with no memory of what happened the previous night.

Undercover police have found some of the women carrying the drug in syringes, which they empty into the drink of the victim once they are inside the hotel room.

However, the prostitutes have recently also been targeting some men inside bars - drugging them before stealing their cards and cash.

During an undercover operation in March, police arrested 20 prostitutes for similar offences.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the  sensitive nature of the case, a police source said the top-ranking Finnish officer died after being caught in the most common sting.

'The woman who is wanted for the murder is not the only one but she has done hundreds of blokes and when police seized her bank accounts they discovered a huge sum of money,' he said.

He said the suspect was believed to be in hiding somewhere on the mainland.

'She was shoulder fishing,' he said.

'This involves looking over the shoulder of the victim at the cash machine to get the pin number. The prostitute would often get one of her friends to proposition the customer, which would distract him.

'They would then drug the bloke and go back to the bank and clean out the account.

'In some cases they are swiping the credit card through a copying machine and over the next few days taking out tens of thousands of dollars.

'But because they put the card back in the victim's wallet, when they wake up they do not notice until they are contacted by the credit card company when the whole account has been cleaned out.'

The source said police believed many victims were reluctant to report the theft.  'Most of the victims are not reporting it because most are married men and do not want the embarrassment. Or they are businessmen or holidaymakers and do not realise what has happened until they get back to their home country,' he said.

One police source said the inquiry had also revealed that many  girls were signing off on $10,000 credit card bills in a number of bars without the  card,  suggesting that several of the bars were involved in the scam.

'Something that has come to light recently in the investigation is that some of the victims are being hit with the drug in a bar without being propositioned and their money and card is being taken off them there,' the source said.



Sex workers use drugs to rob clients