Hong Kong police use CCTV footage to track down, arrest woman, 73, suspected of stealing gold ornaments worth HK$41,000
- Preliminary investigation reveals suspect stuffed three gold ornaments into bag before escaping goldsmith shop in taxi
- ‘Detectives carried out a thorough investigation by checking CCTV footage along the woman’s escape route and eventually tracked her down,’ insider says
Hong Kong police have arrested a 73-year-old woman suspected of stealing gold ornaments worth HK$41,000 (US$5,242) after tracking her down for 25km (15.5 miles) from Kowloon to the New Territories using security camera footage.
Officers were called to a goldsmith shop on Castle Peak Road in Cheung Sha Wan at around 11am on Monday after the woman, who posed as a customer, made off with a pair of bracelets and a necklace.
A source familiar with the case on Tuesday said preliminary investigation revealed that the woman stuffed the valuables into her bag while staff’s attention was diverted.
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“She left a bank card on the counter telling an employee that she was going out to find her domestic helper nearby,” the insider said.
According to the source, police are investigating how the elderly woman obtained the card, which belongs to a third party.
The staff called police after finding out the three gold ornaments had disappeared and the “customer” did not return.
Officers pored over security camera footage and discovered that the elderly woman fled in a taxi near the shop.
The source said the suspect got out of the taxi in Sham Shui Po before taking another means of transport to return to her home in Yuen Long.
“Detectives carried out a thorough investigation by checking CCTV footage along the woman’s escape route and eventually tracked her down in a public housing estate in Yuen Long,” the insider said.
Officers from the Sham Shui Po criminal investigation unit arrested the woman at about 7pm on the same day.
The source said officers also recovered the stolen items from her flat.
The woman was detained on suspicion of theft – an offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
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Separately, police launched a manhunt for a burglar who broke into a watch store in Hung Hom and made off with 30 timepieces worth HK$150,000 before daybreak on Tuesday.
Security camera footage captured the suspect breaking into the Station Lane shop at 3.55am. The burglar stole the watches from a display counter and left the store at 4.07am.
Last year, police handled 23,135 reports of theft across the city, an increase of 26.7 per cent from 18,256 cases logged in 2022.
The city recorded 90,276 crimes in 2023, a 28.9 per cent jump compared with the figure registered in the previous year, while the overall detection rate, or the proportion of crimes solved, was 31.1 per cent.
Authorities plan to install 615 cameras in Hong Kong’s public areas by March and 2,000 in total by the end of the year as part of efforts to combat crimes and ensure public safety, with a focus on densely populated zones and high-crime areas.
