Suspect in donation box thefts at Hong Kong religious sites comes unstuck

A man has been arrested for stealing cash from offering boxes with sticky plastic boards outside various religious venues in Hong Kong, including the city’s largest mosque in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Inspector So Sin-yi, from the Yau Tsim district investigation team, said on Saturday that reports of suspicious activity near the Kowloon Mosque in Tsim Sha Tsui began surfacing on July 24, when staff noticed a significant and unexplained drop in donation box collections.

Security footage showed that suspicious individuals had been using adhesive-coated plastic boards attached to strings to retrieve cash through the narrow slots of donation boxes.

Investigators traced several incidents on July 16, 18 and 25 to the same suspect, who used similar methods at the site.

Accomplices were also present to act as lookouts during the thefts, So said.

On Friday, officers from the Yau Tsim district caught the suspect from mainland China outside the mosque on Nathan Road and immediately arrested him. The man is a two-way permit holder who claims to be unemployed.