Police are looking into a series of women’s underwear thefts after receiving CCTV footage of a thief in action at a residential building in the To Kwa Wan neighborhood.
Five officers from Kowloon City police station arrived at the Tung Hing Building yesterday after receiving a report from a man surnamed Tse, and footage of a man casually nabbing a pair of panties, Apple Daily reports.
At around 4am on Tuesday morning, Tse — who had just returned home from a night shift — opened his front door to find a bald man wearing a black t-shirt and jeans browsing through the laundry rack.
Tse then asks the man “is that yours?” The thief then says “ok ok ok” and walks away.
Tse then reviewed footage from a CCTV camera he had installed to discover just minutes earlier that the man in the hallway had gone into a corner and pulled out a pair of what looks like women’s leggings or panties.
He told the newspaper that he did hang up some laundry in the corridor, but not his wife’s underwear, and suspects that the item the thief was inspecting must have belonged to a neighbor.
According to Apple Daily, Tse set up the cameras after his wife started complaining that she had lost three sets of panties in one year.
The newspaper spoke to other female residents, including a woman surnamed Lai, who said that some of her bras and panties have been taken from her laundry rack.
Another woman surnamed Wong said that dresses, skirts and other clothes have been stolen, but it’s mainly women’s underwear that goes missing.
Tung Hing Building residents told the newspaper that it is possible there is more than one thief involved as the the building is a mixed residential and commercial property — which means it’s quite common for people who aren’t residents to pass through.
Residents also told Apple Daily that they don’t have space in their apartments to hang laundry, so they are forced to dry them outside, making them vulnerable to clothing thieves.
There is no security guard at night, and residents have urged police to step up security around their building.
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