Hong Kong police investigate ‘hell money’, debt-collection notices left outside home of former Birmingham City chairman Carson Yeung
- Officers were called to The Peak in the early hours of Wednesday after two men left notes demanding debt repayment outside Carson Yeung’s house
- Police searching for three suspects after trio escape scene before force arrive
Officers were called to Barker Road shortly after 12.30am when two men were found scattering paper offerings and notes demanding repayment of debts, along with joss sticks, outside Yeung’s house.
According to a police spokesman, the two men fled in a car driven by a third man before officers arrived at the scene.
Officers have mounted a search, but no arrests have currently been made, he said.
Police are treating the incident as debt collection, with officers from the Central criminal investigation unit handling the case.
Last month, police were called to Yeung’s house when the hairdresser-turned-businessman had a money dispute with another man. A source in the force said officers had left after the two men settled the matter.
In December 2020, Yeung was attacked by two men at a Causeway Bay hotel in a dispute over investment issues.
He suffered scratches, swelling and tenderness of the scalp and was sent to Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan Chai for treatment. He refused to give a statement to police or provide any details about his attackers.
Yeung remained a relatively obscure figure before he acquired Birmingham City for £81 million (HK$852 million) in 2009, when the club was competing in the top-level English Premier League.
But he quit all of his management posts at the club in February 2014, a month before Hong Kong’s District Court sentenced him to six years in prison for laundering more than HK$700 million (US$89.8 million) before the takeover.
The former sports club owner completed his sentence in January 2019.
Birmingham City was later sold to Hong Kong’s “King of Penny Stocks”, Paul Suen Cho-hung.
Last year, police handled 1,919 reports of criminal damage relating to debt collection activities across the city, down 8.7 per cent from 1,735 in 2020.
