A thief in Hong Kong has attracted unexpected admiration after they reportedly left behind a few hundred dollars of tips whilst burgling a restaurant.
The incident is believed to have taken place on Monday night, under the cover of Typhoon Merbok. Ming Pao reports that employees at a Taiwanese restaurant in Yau Ma Tei found that the cash register had been emptied when they opened up shop at 10am on Tuesday.
According to police reports, the back door of the restaurant had been pried open and around HKD5,000 was taken from the cash register. However, an envelope marked “staff tips” and containing a few hundred dollars was left in the register, leading reporters and netizens speculating that the thief was a particularly conscientious burglar — a modern Robin Hood-type figure, if you will. Personally, we wonder if the thief just didn’t read what was on the envelope (or forgot it entirely).
A police investigation by the Yau Tsim District Crime Unit is underway. No arrests have been made so far. The tips were given back to staff, as intended.
Hong Kong has seen its fair share of weird robbery cases: last year, a man attempted to rob a bank of HKD2 million armed with only a pair of 10-centimeter-long scissors; in January, a man climbed out of his window because he thought he was being burgled but felt thirsty, so broke into another flat and stole a bottle of water.
In April, a man was caught breaking into an apartment by a domestic helper, took a wrong step and fell to his death. And who can forget the man who got locked in to the arcade he was robbing, called the police to let him out, got away, then returned of his own free will to be arrested.
