Years later, Hong Kong women's unsolved disappearances remain a mystery

The whereabouts of two Hong Kong women reported missing in 2009 and 2010, prompting police to issue rewards to find them, remain unknown, according to police.

Police are treating the two cases as "missing person at risk" as police fear for their safety.

Yesterday, sources with knowledge of the investigations said there was "no new development" in the two cases and probes were continuing.

Despite the issuing of a HK$100,000 reward, there is still no sign of Lee Yuk-shan, a former insurance agent, who disappeared after she left her Fanling home on August 27, 2009. She was reported missing by her husband four days later. She was aged 41 when she disappeared.

According to a police reward notice, Lee had a "hot dispute" with her boyfriend at his Yuen Long home on August 29, 2009. She called a friend that afternoon and said she feared for her safety.

On the same day, her son received a text message sent from her phone at 11pm, saying she was unhappy and would be away from Hong Kong for a few days.

The police reward notice said a subsequent investigation indicated that Lee had not left Hong Kong.

Detectives later arrested her boyfriend but the jobless man whom she had met about six months before her disappearance was released unconditionally in 2010.

One police source said yesterday that given that she had been missing for six years, it was possible she might have been killed.

"We believe the message was sent in an attempt to mislead her family members," the source said of the 2009 text message.

Another woman, Cheng Tsz-mei, has been missing since 2010. She was aged 39 at the time of her disappearance. A reward totalling HK$200,000 is being jointly offered by police and a relative for information that helps solve her disappearance.

At about 6pm on October 30, 2010, Cheng told her son that she would go to a barbecue at a friend's house at Ma On Kong, Pat Heung.

She called another friend at 8pm on the same day when she arrived in Yuen Long. Afterwards, she could not be located or contacted.

"As [of today], the reasons for her disappearance and her whereabouts are not known," police said in the reward notice.