Barking dog thwarts burglars’ bid to rob luxury home in exclusive Kowloon Peak, Hong Kong police say
Police are still searching for two men chased off the property by a security guard who was alerted by a dog
Hong Kong police were searching on Wednesday for two suspected burglars whose attempt to rob a multimillion-dollar home in the exclusive Kowloon Peak neighbourhood was foiled by a dog.
The two men were still at large as of 1pm, police said. They escaped empty-handed from a house at the Bellevue Villa gated compound in Lam Ha Road on Kowloon Peak, also known as Fei Ngo Shan.
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The house is a holiday home and no one was inside when the break-in occurred shortly before midnight. It was the second time the house was targeted in eight years. In December 2009, thieves made off with more than HK$50,000 in cash and property.
Police said two men wearing caps, face masks and gloves gained entry to the home after using a ladder to scale a perimeter wall. The pair then entered the home by prying open a window.
A police source said a security guard was alerted to the break-in by a barking dog.
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“When he went out to check, he sighted two men ransacking one of the rooms,” the source said. “He picked up a shovel and shouted at them. The burglars then ran into the backyard and fled to a hillside behind the house.”
The guard called police at 11.55pm on Tuesday. Police searched the grounds that night but could not locate the suspects.
According to police, the suspects are Chinese men who are about 1.7 metres tall.
Public records show the house was bought by Gold Coral International in 2005 for HK$30.5 million (US$3.9 million).
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Hong Kong has seen a surge in burglaries in expensive neighbourhoods, such as The Peak, Shouson Hill, Deep Water Bay, Repulse Bay and Kowloon Tong.
The number of burglaries in Hong Kong with losses totalling at least HK$500,000 climbed from 31 cases in 2015 to 54 last year. There were 13 such cases in the first six months of this year.
Overall, police handled 1,149 reports of burglary in the city in the first seven months of this year, down 18.3 per cent compared with 1,407 cases in the same period last year.
