Hong Kong police arrested nine Hong Kong people on Saturday (Oct. 10) on suspicion of “assisting criminals. Among those arrested were Tang Yuen-ching, a 72-year-old member of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) and an assistant to former legislator “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, and a local pro-democracy activist. Frontier member Chung Suet Ying.
According to Hong Kong media reports, the police organized crime and triad investigation division senior superintendent Ho Chun-tung said on October 10, the nine arrested suspected of assisting 12 Hong Kong people to escape have a different division of labor, including boat owners, provide funds and arrange transportation and accommodation before smuggling, arrange for life after arriving in Taiwan, help evade the court in Hong Kong and obstruct police lawful arrest.
He Zhendong said more than half a million in cash, several computers and cell phones were seized during the operation, as well as boat transaction documents amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and smuggling fees ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He Zhendong said the nine people arrested were between 27 and 72 years old, including former parliamentary aides, clerks, chefs, and friends of the 12 people arrested by Chinese authorities for fleeing the country, some of whom had been arrested for protesting against the amendment. He added that the case is still under investigation, including whether the nine had helped other people “abscond,” an important aspect of which does not rule out further arrests.
At about 7 p.m. on Saturday, former LSD Chairman Leung Kwok-hung and others protested outside the Mongkok police station with banners, chanting slogans and accusing the Hong Kong police of “conspiring to send the Chinese to China and prevaricating” to demand the release of the arrested people. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.
The police have been evasive and questioned whether the police are creating white terror by diverting attention away from the arrests. He also asked the police to give a detailed account of how the 12 Hong Kong people were arrested more than a month ago when they fled the country, so as to allay public suspicions.
He Zhendong said at the press conference that the 12 Hong Kong people suspected of illegally crossing the border and detained in Shenzhen are all involved in different serious cases in Hong Kong and should not leave the city. He Zhendong argued that the 12 arrestees were arrested for violating the mainland’s criminal law and that the Hong Kong police had nothing to do with the entire operation.
On August 23, the 12 Hong Kong people charged with crimes in the “anti-sentinel” protest against changes to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance were intercepted by the Guangdong Coast Guard in the vicinity of the Ninepin Islands and detained at the Shenzhen Yantian Detention Center as they were leaving Hong Kong by speedboat. On September 30, Shenzhen’s Yantian District Procuratorate approved the arrest of the 12 men on charges of organizing and allegedly organizing people to sneak across the border.
Previously, the Hong Kong government had claimed that it had “no role” in the case, while Police Commissioner Deng Bingqiang insisted that he only learned of the case based on media reports.
According to Hong Kong media, the Hong Kong Marine Department has set up a variety of electronic identification systems in the waters where the speedboat the 12 people were riding, and the Hong Kong Marine Police have deployed radar and other detection equipment. In addition, the Hong Kong Flying Service had sent fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to patrol the waters that day.
Huang Zhifeng, a Hong Kong democracy activist, said that he had obtained internal Flight Service documents that documented the flight history of their fixed-wing aircraft on the day of the incident. Huang believes that the Hong Kong police may have discovered the plan to smuggle the 12 people across the border by speedboat, and that Hong Kong authorities, along with the Chinese Coast Guard, “set a trap” to arrest them and escort them to the mainland.
The 12 Hong Kong people aboard the speedboat could have been easily identified by Hong Kong police, and the flight service team would not have taken the initiative to send out an aircraft for reconnaissance, the only thing that could have been done was to cooperate with Hong Kong government departments, said Tam Man Ho, a member of the Kowloon East Legislative Council who worked as an aircraft engineer.
According to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, the Hong Kong Security Bureau’s Flight Service deployed a B-LVB fixed-wing aircraft and a B-LVH H175 Cheetah helicopter on the day of the incident, which circled the waters for at least three hours. This is consistent with the internal documents obtained by Huang Zhifeng. The fixed-wing B-LVB is equipped with surveillance radar, infrared systems, and an automatic air identification system.
During the past year or so of Hong Kong’s anti-sentinel struggle, many protesters have managed to flee Hong Kong to escape “indiscriminate arrests” by the Hong Kong government, and as many as 200 are believed to have fled to Taiwan, and others to Europe and the United States.
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