Crackdown on Hong Kong triads intensifies after death threats against lawmaker Eddie Chu

Chief executive dismisses any suggestion of ‘compromise’ with organised crime on rural projects and says 17,000 flats are still planned for project at centre of issue

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, pictured outside the New Territories North Regional Police Headquarters in Tai Po is under round-the-clock police protection. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 11:15am, 13 Sep 2016Updated: 5:55pm, 23 Sep 2016

Hong Kong’s leader has ordered police to intensify a crackdown on triads in the New Territories while rejecting a newly elected lawmaker’s allegations of collusion between the government and gangsters, especially over housing development.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said there was no question of any “compromise” with organised crime, as police mounted a fifth consecutive night of raids on entertainment venues allegedly controlled by triads in Yuen Long.

The crackdown is seen as a warning to those who might be behind the death threats against New Territories West lawmaker-elect Eddie Chu Hoi-dick.

Chu had alleged that a “government-business-landlord-triad collusion” was behind was behind the scaling down of a public housing project in Wang Chau, Yuen Long. He said the government had originally planned for 17,000 flats to be built on the site, but this was reduced to 4,000 in the face of opposition from powerful rural leaders including Tsang Shu-wo, who owns a brownfield site in the area.

Newly elected lawmaker Eddie Chu (right) discusses rural affairs with the chairman of Shap Pat Heung Rural Committee, Leung Fuk-yuen, on an RTHK show on Tuesday. Photo: David Wong

After complaining of increased death threats upon being elected with the biggest share of votes in the geographical constituencies, Chu and his family have been placed under round-the-clock police protection.