Bossini heiress kidnapping: Hong Kong police recover HK$6.35m in ransom money from remote hillside
All the money has been recovered except for HK$110,000, which is believed to have been spent by the kidnap gang
Almost every cent of the HK$28 million ransom paid to secure the release of kidnapped Bossini clothing chain heiress Queenie Rosita Law is back in the hands of the authorities after police found HK$6.35 million buried in Ma On Shan country park on Thursday.
Almost a year after the dramatic abduction, just HK$110,000 – believed to have been spent by the kidnappers – remains unrecovered.
READ MORE: HK$15m more of Bossini heiress ransom found by police on Sai Kung hill
The painstaking cross-border hunt for the cash came to an end when detectives discovered bundles of HK$1,000 banknotes wrapped in plastic inside a nylon bag 35cm below ground in dense undergrowth on a remote hillside near the village of Mui Tsz Lam shortly after 10am on Thursday.
“The site was identified after Hong Kong police received information from our mainland counterparts,” a source with knowledge of the investigation said, adding that it was close to where police recovered HK$15 million in August last year
Both stashes of cash were found not far from a cave where Law – whose grandfather Law Ting-pong founded the Bossini empire – was held captive for three days in late April while the kidnappers waited for the payout.
The search for the remaining cash began on Wednesday. A team of 20 officers started digging in a narrowed-down area on Thursday morning.
“It is very difficult to locate and reach the site because the route is rugged and the undergrowth on the hillside is very thick,” chief inspector Chung Chi-ming of the Kowloon East regional crime unit said.
READ MORE: I was scared but physically and emotionally unharmed, insists Hong Kong kidnap victim
The route the kidnap gang – most of whom were from the mainland and are now being held by the authorities there – was not the normal one used by hikers.
“We have never given up on finding the missing ransom money over the past 11 months,” Chung said.
So far, Hong Kong police and mainland authorities have recovered HK$27.89 million of the ransom money in Hong Kong and on the mainland.
“We believe the remaining HK$110,000 was spent by the culprits after they sneaked back to the mainland,” Chung said.
Law was abducted after a gang broke into her home in Sai Kung on April 25.
The heiress was released on April 28 after her family paid HK$28 million.
Ten people were arrested in Hong Kong and on the mainland. Nine of them were caught in Guangdong and Guizhou provinces, Ransom money of HK$6.54 million has been recovered on the mainland along with jewellery believed to have been stolen from Law’s home.
Only one suspect was arrested in Hong Kong. Zheng Xingwang, 29, was trying to leave for Shenzhen on May 3 when he was stopped.
