Two held in hard twist to HK$30m gold pellet heist

Two men have been apprehended in connection with a sophisticated robbery of gold pellets valued at approximately HK$30 million. The crime was reported to the police early on Wednesday by an individual who informed them that his gold pellets had been exchanged for bottles of fabric softener and his companion had gone missing after staying at a hotel in Kwun Tong.

Subsequently, police arrested a suspect in Tai Po and recovered all the stolen gold from a hostel room. Another man was apprehended at the Lo Wu control point as he attempted to depart Hong Kong. The two suspects, aged 27 and 41, are both mainlanders with two-way permits and have since been detained. Chief Inspector Tang Tsz-hin of the Kwun Tong district crime division stated that the robbery had been meticulously planned.

He revealed that the alleged mastermind was a friend of the victim, who arranged for two other men to purchase fabric softener weighing the same as the gold and book an adjoining hotel room. The plan reportedly took only two minutes for the suspects to successfully execute the swap once the victim left the hotel room to smoke. Inspector Tang suggested that the third suspect, the victim's companion, had already left Hong Kong and that detectives are striving to locate him.