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The girl is caught on CCTV at the store. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A robbery gang who used an innocent-looking child to stage the audacious theft of a HK$36 million diamond necklace from under the noses of staff at a luxury jewellery shop were being hunted by police last night.
The heist - which detectives have described as "very well planned" - unfolded when two women, a man and a girl thought to be between 12 and 14 years old walked into the Emperor Jewellery shop in the 1881 Heritage shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui shortly after 3pm yesterday.
Well-dressed and speaking Putonghua, the trio of adults, managed to distract staff by asking to look at a series of items on display while the girl stole a key from a drawer, opened a display cabinet then slipped the necklace off a display bust and into her pocket. The girl was was later caught on CCTV cameras calmly walking out of the mall.
Detectives say she may have quickly changed her appearance after leaving the shop before jumping into a taxi to escape. Her adult accomplices, who police say are aged between 30 and 40, remained inside the mall as if nothing had happened.
Shop staff did not notice the 100-carat gold necklace embedded with more than 30 diamonds was missing until shortly before 5pm. A 63-year-old member of staff then called police.
"Initial investigations suggest the girl stole a key from a drawer and then opened a display cabinet to steal the necklace when the three adults - one man and two women - kept staff busy," a police source said, adding that it was the first time in recent years a child had been used in such a heist.
"The necklace was embedded with more than 30 diamonds totalling about 100 carats. We were told it was worth about HK$36 million.
"The three adults posed as big spenders and demanded employees show them jewellery in an apparent move to divert staff attention," the source said.
Police said that after spending more than 30 minutes in the shop, the four left without buying anything. A search was mounted but no arrests were made.
The girl is about 1.4 metres tall and was wearing a grey windbreaker, dark jeans and black shoes after she left the shop but may have been dressed in pink and white inside the shop.
Border officers are looking out for the thieves as police believe they will flee the city.
Police say two adults distracted store staff. Photo: SMP
An audacious gang of thieves who allegedly used an innocent-looking young girl to steal a HK$36 million diamond necklace from a jewellery store display cabinet has left police grappling with a probe involving a child.
The Dickensian-style robbery has shocked some Hongkongers, although the use of children to commit crime is not uncommon on the mainland.
The heist unfolded on Friday afternoon when two women, a man and a young girl, thought to be between 12 and 14 years old, walked into the Emperor Jewellery store at the 1881 Heritage shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Described as well-dressed and speaking Putonghua, the adults distracted staff by asking to look at a series of items on display.
Meanwhile, the girl took a key from a drawer, opened a display cabinet, and then slipped the necklace off a display bust and into her pocket.
The girl was later captured on CCTV cameras walking calmly out of the mall.
The adult accomplices, who police believed to be 30 to 40 years old, remained inside the mall as if nothing had happened.
Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung said Hong Kong police could contact their mainland counterparts to track down suspects if they believed they had fled across the border.
"If the mainland police find the suspects, they can be brought back to Hong Kong. They can be charged and imprisoned here," Luk said.
"But there have been conflicting reports about the age of the girl involved. If it turns out that the girl is [less than] 10 years old, then there is nothing the Hong Kong police can do."
He said that local law assumes anyone younger than 10 years old was not mature enough to have the intention to commit a crime.
"The police may not be able to charge the girl. But the girl did not do it alone. She came with some other people. That's important. Those other people can still be charged with conspiring to steal," Luk added.
Last month, mainland media reported that a woman distracted the salespeople of a shop in Xian by asking them to help get an uncooperative boy to try on some clothes.
The woman stole 1,130 yuan (HK$1,427) from the cashier amid the chaos.
In August last year, police in Chuzhou city, in the province of Anhui, rescued three children after they were kidnapped by people who tried to train them as thieves.
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Hong Kong's audacious heists
September 2014: A man eluded heavy security and stole a 4.8-carat diamond worth about HK$800,000 by swapping it with a fake at the Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair after asking to see the merchandise.
April 2014: A robber posing as a big spender managed to convince a sales assistant to let him try on two luxury watches at the Zenith Boutique in Tsim Sha Tsui - and then bolted out the door with his HK$480,000 haul. It was a simple ploy: the 1.8-metre-tall man outran the staff members who chased after him.
February 2014: An audacious shoplifter left Burberry - one of the world's biggest designer brands - red-faced after he walked out of its Tsim Sha Tsui store with a HK$995,000 alligator skin coat. The robber - caught on security cameras - simply lifted the trench coat off the mannequin and calmly walked out.
October 2013: Two thieves poured kerosene on employees of a Diamond Collection shop in Tsim Sha Tsui and threatened them with what appeared to be a pistol, before fleeing with HK$10 million worth of diamonds in a 60-second heist. The two men were dressed as construction workers, wearing yellow safety helmets, reflective vests, face masks and gloves.
CCTV records a girl leaving the jeweller's. Photo: SCMP Picture
A fugitive mainland gang that grooms children to carry out jewel heists across Asia is being sought over an audacious HK$36 million theft in Tsim Sha Tsui early this year.
According to police sources in Hong Kong, mainland police have zoomed in on a five-member gang they believe snatched the most expensive diamond necklace in a high-end jewellery store in January from under the noses of staff.
The heist was remarkable for a young girl's ability to take a key from a drawer and lift the necklace as a couple posing as her parents distracted the salespeople.
Now, police believe the girl is part of a five-strong gang along with two men and two women who have been identified by mainland authorities and have become the subject of a major manhunt.
"Intelligence indicates the two men and two women are not the girl's parents," a source told the South China Morning Post.
They are thought to be members of a syndicate that has trained and deployed children in a series of robberies across the region, according to the source.
"The syndicate strikes not only in Hong Kong, but also in other countries," he said.
Police have declined to say if the syndicate is responsible for two identical heists in Singapore and Malaysia last year, but this is also understood to be a major line of investigation.
In the Singapore heist on Christmas Day, a girl whom authorities said looked "about 10 years old" stole a high-value diamond ornament from a shop at the Marina Bay Sands complex. She was accompanied by a couple who similarly diverted the attention of shop staff.
The Kuala Lumpur case, meanwhile, involved a girl of between eight and 10 who made off with a 5.2 million ringgit (HK$12.1 million) ring from a jeweller's at a Bukit Bintang shopping centre in January last year.
She had entered the shop with three women and was believed to have taken the key to the glass showcase, stolen the ring and then put the key back.
"The tactics they use are simple, but they work," another source said. "Some distract the attention of shop staff and others do the stealing."
Children were assigned to carry out the actual thievery, he said, because they would not draw attention. "After a series of such cases, shop attendants have become more alert," he said.
The girl in the Tsim Sha Tsui heist looked to be 12 to 14 years old. She went inside the Emperor Jewellery shop in the 1881 Heritage mall on January 23 accompanied by one man and two women.
The three adults kept shop staff busy on one side of the store while the girl calmly picked up a master key behind the counter and took the necklace from a display cabinet on the other side.
A man met the girl after she exited the shop with the necklace - embedded with more than 40 diamonds totalling 117 carats - in her jacket pocket.
Sources said the five left for Shenzhen in two groups through the Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau checkpoints hours later.
Kowloon West regional crime unit is investigating. No one has been arrested yet, nor has the necklace been recovered.
