Life of Guangzhou - Police: Crime Rate Increases in First Half of Year

Police yesterday said that the total number of crimes in the first six months had increased by 3.5 per cent, with a drastic surge in bank robbery.

The number of bank robberies had gone up by 122.2 per cent to 20 cases in the first six month, compared with only 9 in the same period last year, while the total number of crimes had increased to 39,433 from 38,117 in the same period last year.

Tang Hau-sing, director of crime and security of the police, said the increase did not mean that the crime situation had worsened.

He explained that of the 20 bank robberies, 15 attempts had been failed and the banks did not suffer any loss.

For the five successful attempts, the loss only amounted between HK,000 to HK,000.

Tang said the culprits had acted individually, and did not belong to any syndicate. "Some of the culprits were merely copycats, following the behaviour of other suspects," he said.

Police arrested five suspects, some of them were related to more than one case.

He added that 17 of these cases had taken place in the first quarter, meaning the crime trend had become stable in the second quarter.

The number of illegal immigrants arrested had also been increased to 1,454 from 1,135 in the same period last year.

Police director of operations Yam Tat-wing said the illegal immigrants had been arrested for stealing Buddha pine, marine products in Hong Kong sea and charges related to prostitution.

The number of mainland visitors arrested had decreased to 831 from 1,047, and the crime rate among them was 12 out of each 100,000 visitors.

But illegal Vietnamese immigrants had gone up from 81 to 285, of which 129 had been arrested for committing crimes such as possessing weapons and for robbery.

Yam said the Vietnamese had come to Hong Kong via mainland, and the police would urge Guangdong Province to step up security across the border.

There were reports that the Vietnamese had come to commit crime deliberately in order to land themselves in jail because the conditions in Hong Kong prisons were better than those in their homeland.

He said the majority of Vietnamese had come to Hong Kong as illegal labours and committed minor criminal offences, but there was no evidence suggesting that they had come to get themselves imprisoned.

About 4 per cent of them had come to Hong Kong for medical services, Yam added.

Other types of crimes had also increased. The number of wounding and serious assault had increased from 3,496 to 3,768, while the number of theft had increased from 17,414 to 18,301.

The number of deception had also gone up to 2,225 from 1,992, with serious narcotics offences increased from 907 to 1,018.

But the seizure of five out of six drugs had decreased. The seizure of Ecstasy had decreased to 3,062 tablets from 161,449, and the seizure of cannabis had decreased to 34 kg from 143 kg.

Only the seizure of ketamine had increased to 402 kg from 316 kg.

Meanwhile, Yam said the police would cooperate with mainland and overseas law enforcement agencies for terrorist attacks prevention, especially for the international telecommunication exhibition to be held from December 4-8 in AsiaWorld-Expo.

The event will be attended by 700 exhibitors, 50,000 overseas visitors and 10,000 local visitors.

An emergency drill will be held in October with the Fire Services Department.

Yam said the police did not expect serious protests at the exhibition similar to those organized by South Korean farmers in last year's World Trade Organization meeting.