Hong Kong robbers who attempted HK$6.4m heist at Central MTR Station jailed for up to three years
Seven gang members shadowed foreign exchange courier carrying cash in her bag before striking; alleged mastermind still at large
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 21 January, 2016, 7:41pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 21 January, 2016, 8:01pm
Jasmine Siu
[email protected]
The seven pleaded guilty in District Court to one count of conspiracy to rob. Photo: Sam Tsang
Seven men who conspired to rob a foreign exchange courier carrying over HK$6.4 million cash in an orchestrated plan that involved three surveillance operations were sentenced on Thursday to jail terms of between 32 and 36 months.
The District Court was told that the robbery took place at the staircase of Central MTR Station’s Exit C shortly before 11am on September 23, 2014, when two men tried to snatch a trolley containing a nylon bag from a foreign exchange company employee, Hung Shuk-pui.
Hung was making routine cash deliveries from Lo Wu to Central – inside her bag was more than HK$6.43 million in various currencies.
Police officers on surveillance duty just seven metres away swooped as the two men struggled to flee with the trolley, which eventually broke. Hung was unharmed and her cash remained intact.
Eight men were arrested and charged in the aftermath, as officers combed through surveillance evidence, Octopus card records, telephone records and closed-circuit camera footage.
Seven pleaded guilty earlier this month to one count of conspiracy to rob, while the charge against Ngan Chi-lung was dismissed.
But the alleged mastermind, Hui Yik-fai, remains at large.
The seven convicted men were Li Wai-hung, 48, Zafar Tai Tin-ho, 43, Yuen Yik-hang, 64, Ngan Chi-pan, 28, Fung Hoi-kit, 67, Ng Chi-tung, 23, and Chan Kit-cheung, 59.
They took turns to follow Hung’s deliveries on three occasions in the month of the robbery: some boarded the same train, others loitered in Central, and they all kept in close phone contact.
Three of the gang later told police they were promised between HK$5,000 and HK$100,000, but only two of them were paid – just HK$100 each.
Judge Gary Lam Kar-yan said he accepted the defence mitigation that it was an unarmed robbery and that the violence was just “pulling, shouting and snatching of a nylon bag”.
But it was “an orchestrated plan” to rob a target, not a random individual, who was carrying a lot of cash.
“What [the defendants] did was clear,” the judge said. “Although they played different roles, they each contributed to executing the plan. Their roles were equally culpable. There’s no need to distinguish the role or criminality.”
Lam adopted a starting point of four years’ jail for all seven men, before discounting it by one-third to credit their guilty pleas. But added up to four months to the terms of Tai, Fung and Chan in view of their past criminal records.
