Gaming-related crimes on the increase

Gaming-related crimes totalled 1,298 cases for the first nine months of the year, a growth of 16 per cent year-on-year, the Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak announced yesterday whilst stressing the increases are slowing down and are not impacting public security.
According to the Secretary, gaming-related crimes for the period are primarily loan sharking and illegal detainment, of which total cases amounted to 348 and 349, respectively, increasing 13.3 per cent and 45 per cent year-on-year.
“Despite the two types of crime registering increases, growth rates have both been slowing down throughout the quarters,” said the Secretary in a press briefing yesterday morning.
He indicated that the year-on-year growth of illegal detainment cases has slowed from 32.8 per cent for the first quarter and 27.1 per cent for the first half of the year, whilst that of loan sharking has narrowed from the increase of 55.9 per cent for the first quarter and the 52.3 per cent for the first six months.
“Since the majority of [gaming-related] cases happen in casinos, public security outside the casinos has not been affected by the two types of crime,” the Secretary said, indicating the growth in the types of case are due to police taking the initiative to open files on the cases.

Security stable
On the other hand, the official claimed local security forces have not received any intelligence indicating unusual movement by triad gangs.
He stressed that the city’s gaming adjustment has not impacted the city’s security situation.
However, the Secretary said the departments would strengthen their deployments near local gaming venues in order to prevent gaming debt disputes or other related criminal activities tumbling [onto the streets] outside local casinos.
During the nine months, the city’s Judiciary Police transferred 1,443 suspects in gaming-related cases to the Prosecutor’s Office, up 12.5 per cent year-on-year from 1,283, Secretariat data reveals.
The Secretary pointed out yesterday that the majority of suspects were not local residents, perceiving the increase in the number of suspects also reflects the effectiveness of [various] departments’ enforcement against gaming-related crimes.

Taxi violations
For the three quarters, local security bodies opened files on 10,826 crimes, up 479, or 4.6 per cent, compared to the same period of last year.
Of the total, taxi violations amounted to 3,038 cases, a decrease of 24.9 per cent from 4,050 cases one year ago. Some 35.6 per cent of the violations involved taxi drivers refusing to take passengers – amounting to 1,081 cases – whilst some other 1,125 cases, 37 per cent, involved drivers overcharging passengers.
In addition, local police prosecuted 663 individuals for providing unlicensed taxi services for the fist nine months of the year, of whom 513 used car-hailing application Uber.