Thieves prise open safe and steal HK$70,000 from Wan Chai office on Hennessy Road
- Break-in is one of two across city in space of just 30 minutes
Police were called to an office building in Hong Kong on Thursday after a safe was prised open and HK$70,000 (US$8,940) stolen.
The break-in came to light shortly before 9.30am when staff arrived for work at the property on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai.
The burglary was one of two break-ins reported in the city in just 30 minutes, according to police.
In Tai Po a 61-year-old woman called police at about 9am after a tablet computer worth HK$2,000 was stolen from her Fu Shin Street store.
Police said a padlock on the shop door had been broken open and the property ransacked. The business sells incense, joss sticks and paper offerings.
The two cases came 13 hours after another theft in which cash and valuables worth HK$440,000 were stolen from a flat in the Laurna Villa housing estate on Lok Yuen Path in Sha Tin.
The loss was discovered by a female tenant, 51, at about 8.10pm on Wednesday.
“She made a report to police, saying HK$260,000 worth of jewellery, two watches worth HK$120,000, and HK$60,000 in foreign currency were missing,” police said.
So far no one has been arrested.
Despite a series of break-ins targeting luxury houses and flats on Hong Kong Island in October, the latest figures show police handled 1,283 reports of burglaries in the first 10 months of this year, down 18.2 per cent from 1,569 cases in the same period last year.
On October 24 the home on The Peak of a former commander of Hong Kong’s Auxiliary Police, Arthur Kwok Chi-shun, was targeted by a burglar who left empty handed after triggering an alarm.