The victim was down on his luck. The thieves didn’t fare much better.
Police yesterday arrested three men suspected of stealing a fanny pack belonging to an elderly man, a jade salesman struggling to make ends meet.
The victim, surnamed Cheung, caught a break.
After the trio snatched his pack from outside a 7-eleven on Hollywood Road, the 70-year-old gave chase, catching up with one of the assailants while the other two tried to hide in a public restroom on Shing Wong Street, close to the PMQ arts hub, wrote HK01.
Hiding in toilet stalls, it seems, doesn’t give you much chance to escape.
Police arrived and arrested the trio — surnamed Tam, Leung, and Yung, aged 41, 47, and 54 respectively — on suspicion of theft.
They recovered the jade bracelet and pendant worth about HK$3,000 (US$383) and HK$2,000 (US$256) in cash.
Cheung, who suffered minor injuries to his foot while scuffling with one of the thieves, needed that. Things hadn’t been going so well, according to Apple Daily.
At the time of the theft, he was collecting cardboard boxes from 7-eleven and had left his pack on his cart.
He told Ming Pao a little of his background.
He said he’d been selling jade in the Sheung Wan area but fallen on hard times and in March had been forced to close his store on Possession Street and now relied on cleaning jobs to pay rent.
The stolen jade had been bequeathed by his dead father, who also traded in the ornamental stones.
Getting it back, he said, meant a lot.
