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Seventh suspect arrested, but no cash found, in multi-million-dollar highway cash spill
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 3:36pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 8:56pm
Clifford Lo [email protected]
A man picks up money spilled by a security van in Wan Chai on December 24. More than HK$7 million is still missing. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A seventh suspect has been arrested in connection with the Christmas Eve money-grab frenzy, sparked when millions of dollars in cash fell out of the back of a security van in Hong Kong.
The man, aged 20, was arrested in Tuen Mun yesterday. Officers said no cash was recovered during yesterday’s arrest.
Previous suspects' arrests have yielded just a fraction of the HK$15.2 million that disappeared from the highway cash spill on Gloucester Road in Wan Chai.
Forty-six people have voluntarily returned a total of about HK$7.92 million.
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Police reiterated that more than HK$7 million remained missing, more than two weeks after the accident.
The armoured vehicle of security firm G4S had been travelling on the busy road in Wan Chai when its rear doors opened, sending HK$500 notes flying into the air and onto the highway.
Four G4S employees sitting in the front of the vehicle only noticed the lapse when they got to Kowloon.
Security cameras showed drivers stopping their cars and passers-by running to the street to take armfuls or fistfuls of cash in a mad scramble that lasted some 10 minutes.
Witnesses reportedly saw mainland tourists leave their coaches and help themselves to the money.
Police said that out of the HK$52.5 million that tumbled out of the van in three plastic boxes, HK$15.23 million disappeared before officers arrived to cordon off the site.
G4S, which landed in the news for a security shortfall during the 2012 London Olympics, said the van was carrying a total of HK$270 million under a contract with Bank of China. The security firm has said it would resolve the loss with the bank under its contract and insurance.
G4S came under scrutiny when it said on the eve of the Olympics that it would not be able to provide the full number of security staff it had been contracted for at a cost of £284 million (HK$3.4 billion).
The company’s chief executive, Nick Buckles, was called before a British House of Commons committee to explain why the firm would have to lean on the army to bolster security for the event.
