Hong Kong police arrest couple who pocketed cash that spilled on to street
Hong Kong police arrest couple who pocketed cash that spilled on to street
The pair were taking a taxi along the citys central Gloucester Road when boxes of HK$500 notes each worth about 40 fell out of a security van with a faulty door.
They stopped the car and began scooping up cash along with dozens of other delighted passersby, the South China Morning Post reported. People had grabbed up to $HK15m (1.24m) in cash by the time armed police arrived to seal off the road.
At first people did nothing, then one person went into the road, one witness who worked at a nearby office building told the paper.
You couldnt make it up. There were 20 or 30 people picking up cash from the road on Christmas Eve. They looked like school kids who knew they were being naughty, but thought this is a once in a lifetime thing. Everyone had the same look on their face.
The guards, from firm G4S, didnt notice their loss until they reached base around 14km (8 miles) away. The money belonged to the Bank of China.
Pictures snapped at the site look like stills from a film, with banknotes scattered on the tarmac like rubbish, and swirling around passing cars.
The seal on two of the three plastic boxes was broken. They probably broke when they fell to the ground, district police superintendent Wan Siu-Hong told Reuters. They were all HK$500 (US$64) banknotes, blocks and blocks of it.
Anyone who thought they had stumbled across a Christmas windfall risks starting 2015 in jail, as officials are aggressively chasing down people who made off with the notes. Police have appealed to anyone who picked up cash to hand it in, and warned that they will use CCTV footage to catch others.
We will arrest as soon as possible all the people who have been identified, said police chief inspector Addy Li Chi-kin, adding that the couple taken in late on Christmas Day had already confessed.
We found the money stored under the bed at their homes and they admitted they took the money on Gloucester after getting off the taxi they were in, said
So far around 30 people have given up more than HK$5m, and a poll on the South China Morning Post website found that nearly two-thirds of readers would not try to keep any notes they picked up.
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We will arrest as soon as possible all the people who have been identified, said police chief inspector Addy Li Chi-kin, adding that the couple taken in late on Christmas Day had already confessed.
Cash is not king in a socialist country . Even in the US that kind of govt confiscation is becoming more frequent ...