... and so it starts
scmp.com
Three held as police recover bulk of gold bars from HK$90m heist
Clifford Lo
Dec 04, 2010
Three suspected members of a gang who carried out Hong Kong's largest gold robbery in a decade have been arrested in a cross-border police operation that recovered most of the HK$90 million of bullion stolen.
Detectives believe the heist - in which 265 gold bars weighing a kilogram each were taken from a Yuen Long gold trading company and stashed in a secret compartment in a car - was an inside job. Two of the men arrested are employees of the company and went missing after the robbery six weeks ago.
Investigators put a news blackout on the case in a bid to snare the gang.
The three men, all Hong Kong residents and two of them brothers, disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the robbery after hiding the gold-laden car in a Pat Heung garage.
They were caught by Guangdong Public Security Bureau officers in their hometown, Foshan, two weeks ago after Hong Kong sought help.
Most of the gold, stolen from a warehouse on October 22, was recovered by Hong Kong police from the left-hand-drive car after the suspects revealed where the loot was hidden.
"The gold bars were concealed in the hollow centre of the doors of the vehicle. The haul was found when our officers removed the covers," a police officer said. "Several gold bars have not been recovered. It's not known whether the missing bars have been sold."
Investigators said the car was left in the garage days after the theft. "We are still investigating whether the gold bars were intended for the mainland," the officer said.
Guangdong police handed the brothers, aged 39 and 45, and the third suspect, 42, to Hong Kong officers at the Huanggang border crossing yesterday. They were being questioned in Tai Po police station last night and no charges had been laid.
"There were no immigration records showing they had left Hong Kong. We believe they were smuggled into the mainland," Chief Inspector Chow Tak-choi of the New Territories North regional crime unit said.
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