A young woman has been accused of helping to rob four people as a teenager by luring them to a remote area in Hong Kong where her gang was waiting to use violence and take nude photos to force them to pay.
Hau Yan-ki, an unemployed 23-year-old, is on trial at the High Court on Wednesday for her role in three alleged robberies that took place in a row between November 19 and 22, 2020, during which the four victims were beaten up and forced to transfer money to the gang.
Prosecutors alleged Hau, who was just 18 at the time, met her targets on Facebook and dating apps and persuaded them to take a taxi with her to an isolated location in Yuen Long.
Among the victims was a married man – identified in court only by his surname Fung – who met Hau at a bar on November 20 after they started chatting on a dating app.
Hau asked Fung to send her home and lured him into a taxi with her. When they arrived at an isolated area surrounded by grassland, Fung was dragged from the car by several men and assaulted.
He was then forced to call his wife and request an urgent transfer of HK$35,000 (US$4,466).
The gang continued to pressure Fung demanding further transfers “in order to guarantee his safety”.
As they pressured him to reveal the password to his bank account, they also forced him to undress and took nude photos of him.
A 65-year-old taxi driver, Mak Kim-man, was identified as an accomplice. He denied the charges and stood trial alongside Hau.
On a separate occasion on November 19, another male victim, surnamed Chan, inquired about a job that paid HK$700 a day via Facebook and agreed to meet Hau that same day.
Chan was taken to the same location where a group of men was awaiting to rob him. He was forced to take nude pictures while holding his Hong Kong identity card.
The gang pressed Chan to call his family for money. His aunt transferred HK$70,000, fearing her nephew would be harmed if she did not comply.
The court heard that the only female victim in this case, referred to only as “X”, first came into contact with Hau after she believed she could collect an unpaid salary from an unidentifiable person only identified as “Ah B”.
“Ah B” instructed Hau to pick up the woman from Yuen Long at midnight on November 22 and she was also driven to the same location and attacked by a group of men.
But this time, the woman was forced to undress and masturbate for at least five minutes in front of the camera.
Later the same night, another victim, surnamed Ng, arrived at the scene. The two did not know each other, but the gang forced the man to perform oral sex on the woman.
The woman was told to pay the gang HK$5,000 in instalments before they agreed to release her. Ng was let go before dawn after he maintained that he did not have any money.
The seven-member jury will hear testimonies from three of the four victims during the 13-day trial.
The trial continues on Thursday. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
