From shoot-outs to smash-and-grab: old-school jewellery raids in era of cybercrime have Hong Kong police on the back foot

There is a grainy image from more than two decades ago that still reminds Hongkongers of the bad old days, when the city was plagued by an epidemic of audacious jewellery heists.

The television footage shows an armed robber with a balaclava over his head, brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle in broad daylight outside a Mong Kok jewellery shop. The man is widely identified as Yip Kai-foon, the “King of Thieves” who masterminded several of those brazen robberies.