Tsui Po Ko
Encyclopedia
Tsui Po-ko (17 May 1969 – 17 March 2006) was a police constable in the Hong Kong Police Force
who was implicated in a number of spectacular crimes, which included bank robbery
and murder.
He died when he and another police constable shot each other in a gun battle in a Tsim Sha Tsui
underpass. The inquest into the events leading up to his death aroused great interest in Hong Kong, as it unravelled a string of intriguing events, and revealed the secret life of a policeman with a delusional state of mind.
On 25 April 2007, the five-person jury in the Coroner's court unanimously decided that Tsui was responsible for injuring one and killing two fellow police officers and a bank security guard, on three separate occasions. The jury returned a verdict that he had been "lawfully killed" by fellow officer Tsang Kwok-hang in a shootout. The inquest lasted 36 days, one of the longest ever of inquests in Hong Kong.
Assistant Police Commissioner John Lee said that this was "an exceptional case". Coroner Michael Chan Pik-kiu called "the most difficult" inquest for a jury he had ever encountered.
, and arrived in Hong Kong in 1978 with his mother. His father and brother arrived a year later. He attended the Kwun Tong Government Industrial Secondary School (now Kwun Tong Kung Lok Government Secondary School). After graduation, had had several jobs, including a spell with the Hong Kong Regiment.
Tsui joined the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1993; he regarded it as well paid job with good benefits, and was a police constable for 13 years until his death in 2006. He was an outstanding cadet at the Hong Kong Police College, having won the "silver whistle".
Tsui was an excellent marksman. In 1993, he scored full marks in target shooting as well as simulated bank robbery shooting. From 2001 to 2005, in the tests held three times a year, he would score a faultless 48 points. According to shooting range records, he been trained to shoot left-handed. He had once claimed to a superior that he was ambidextrous.
From 1996 to 2001, Tsui made four attempts at the 'Police Constable/Senior Police Constable to Sergeant Promotion Qualifying Examination', He scored 68 marks in his 2000 attempt, earning him an interview. His stubbornness and difficulty in communication meant that he was never promoted. However, since 1999, he had given up applying for promotion. From then on until 2003, Tsui applied three times to join the Airport Security Unit, but failed. He failed a personality assessment during the first attempt, and subsequently failed because of insufficient fitness. Between 2002 and 2005, he was attached to the Tsing Yi
district.
Tsui's wife, Lee Po-ling, works at the Social Welfare Department as a social security assistant. The couple met when she worked as a sales assistant at the airport, and Tsui was also stationed there. They married in 1997 and they had a daughter in 2000.
In October 2001, Tsui and his wife appeared together in a couples version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
on ATV
and won HK$60,000, and they claimed they would donate some of the money to charity.
Tsui, who was an avid sportsman, was an Oxfam Trailwalker, participated in marathons, and also liked hang gliding
. Unbeknownst to his wife, he would go to Mong Kok
and Shenzhen
weekly to frequent massage parlours, karaoke bars, and prostitutes
. Also a habitual heavy gambler, Tsui was known to have made a HK$75,000 wager on Japan to win the 2004 Asian Cup final
at odds of 2.8:1 on 7 August 2004.
Tsui was found responsible for murdering constable Leung Shing-yan and stealing his revolver
in March 2001. The 23 year old Leung, who was single, had been on the force for 5 years.
Answering a noise complaint in Tsuen Wan
, on 14 March 2001, Leung was shot five times at close range. Leung took three bullets in the head and two in the back at 552 Shek To House Block B in Shek Wai Kok Estate. His revolver, a fully loaded .38 calibre Smith & Wesson
revolver, and one extra clip of six bullets were missing.
The noise complaint was apparently bogus, and was made from an untraceable mobile phone. The police suspected that the officer was lured to the scene for his gun. Some 3,000 people, of which 2,000 police officers, were interviewed by the police, yet the perpetrator escaped detection. Later, forensic tests
found that the DNA
on a mask left at the crime scene
matched Tsui's.
of a Hang Seng Bank
branch at Belvedere Garden in Tsuen Wan, in which HK$
500,000 was stolen, and a Pakistan
i security guard was killed.
At 12.10 pm, a masked robber acting alone burst into the bank and shot a security guard. Zafar Iqbal Khan, aged 31, was shot three times by the robber, and died instantly. The perpetrator was a man with short hair and about 1.8m tall, which Assistant Police Commissioner Yam described as a "calm, cold-blooded and brutal robber". A HK$2 million reward was issued.
Tsui matched the description of the perpetrator as captured on closed circuit television; key pieces of evidence were a red T-shirt, Mizuno
brand shoes and the fact that footage showed the killer to be a left-handed gunman. He was placed near the scene by the Police: Tsui boarded a bus from Yut Tung Estate in Tung Chung
at 11.11 am using the Octopus card
issued to his wife; it was clocked in a minibus
heading to Tsuen Wan at 11.53 am.
A red T-shirt carrying a similar distinctive logo as captured on CCTV was found at Tsui's home after his death. The T-shirt, bearing the logo of the Yinchuan International Motor-cycle Travel Festival was a gift to Tsui by the club secretary during his visit to the show in 2000, expert witness identified the T-shirt as having been worn inside-out during the robbery. Ballistics identified the gun used in the robbery as having been a police service revolver taken from murdered police officer Leung Shing-yan.
, commodities, securities, funds and margin
trading, and had lost a total of HK$371,982 in those investments.
Tsui and his wife bought one flat in August 1997, and paid HK$574,800 in cash. Two years later, he bought a flat at Tung Chung Crescent with a HK$396,173 down payment, paying monthly instalments of HK$17,778 for a first and a second mortgage. The mortgages were paid off in just five years – HK$388,151 in 2001 and HK$500,000 in 2004.
The police alleged that the transactions were inconsistent with a constable's salary, and that the $500,000 unexplained cash would be consistent with the bank's loss during the heist in 2001.
Tsui was also responsible for ambushing two police officers in a Tsim Sha Tsui
pedestrian subway, triggering a shoot-out on 17 March 2006.
28 year old Constable Sin Ka-keung , survivor of the shoot-out, said that he and 33 year old Constable Tsang Kwok-hang were ambushed in the underpass at the junction of Austin
and Canton
roads. Sin had seen a man lurking on the northern stairs of the subway before he was shot in the face. The attacker then tried to snatch his revolver. Tsui had started the exchange. Sin returned two shots, but missed. Sin grappled with the man and fired two shots before both of them slumped to the floor. Tsang was shot in the head and died, while Sin sustained gunshot wounds in the face and leg. Tsui was killed during the gun battle, having been shot five times in the torso by Tsang.
The police confirmed that the rusty revolver found beside Tsui's body to be the gun stolen from the late PC Leung in 2001.
.
He was not media shy, as was demonstrated by his appearance on a television game show; he was happily photographed when he won the chance to buy his flat in a draw. He was again happy to be photographed during the democracy rally on 1 July 2004 dressed in traditional Chinese funeral style ("披麻戴孝").
An associate professor of social science at the City University of Hong Kong
suggested that Tsui, like many criminals, did not know how to face frustration, and chose instead to take an illegal path in obtaining socially approved goals, such as money, prestige or recognition. It was suggested that the police force paid more attention to talented officers who fail to gain promotion, and recommended that there should be independent and confidential psychological counselling services for such troubled or frustrated officers.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation
criminal profiler believed that Tsui's behaviour fit into most of the definitions of Schizotypal personality disorder
, while an expert from the Queensland University of Technology
said Tsui's personality profile matched that of a serial killer who believed he was destined to change the world, probably tried to rise above his self-perceived unremarkable life by playing God, by taking lives.
Documentaries
Fiction
Hong Kong Police Force
The Hong Kong Police Force is the largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. It is the world's second, and Asia's first, police agency to operate with a modern policing system. It was formed on 1 May 1844, with a strength of 32 officers...
who was implicated in a number of spectacular crimes, which included bank robbery
Bank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
and murder.
He died when he and another police constable shot each other in a gun battle in a Tsim Sha Tsui
Tsim Sha Tsui
Tsim Sha Tsui , often abbreviated as TST, is an urbanized area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hung Hom Bay now east of Tsim Sha Tsui...
underpass. The inquest into the events leading up to his death aroused great interest in Hong Kong, as it unravelled a string of intriguing events, and revealed the secret life of a policeman with a delusional state of mind.
On 25 April 2007, the five-person jury in the Coroner's court unanimously decided that Tsui was responsible for injuring one and killing two fellow police officers and a bank security guard, on three separate occasions. The jury returned a verdict that he had been "lawfully killed" by fellow officer Tsang Kwok-hang in a shootout. The inquest lasted 36 days, one of the longest ever of inquests in Hong Kong.
Assistant Police Commissioner John Lee said that this was "an exceptional case". Coroner Michael Chan Pik-kiu called "the most difficult" inquest for a jury he had ever encountered.
Biography
Tsui was the elder of two children born in FujianFujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, and arrived in Hong Kong in 1978 with his mother. His father and brother arrived a year later. He attended the Kwun Tong Government Industrial Secondary School (now Kwun Tong Kung Lok Government Secondary School). After graduation, had had several jobs, including a spell with the Hong Kong Regiment.
Tsui joined the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1993; he regarded it as well paid job with good benefits, and was a police constable for 13 years until his death in 2006. He was an outstanding cadet at the Hong Kong Police College, having won the "silver whistle".
Tsui was an excellent marksman. In 1993, he scored full marks in target shooting as well as simulated bank robbery shooting. From 2001 to 2005, in the tests held three times a year, he would score a faultless 48 points. According to shooting range records, he been trained to shoot left-handed. He had once claimed to a superior that he was ambidextrous.
From 1996 to 2001, Tsui made four attempts at the 'Police Constable/Senior Police Constable to Sergeant Promotion Qualifying Examination', He scored 68 marks in his 2000 attempt, earning him an interview. His stubbornness and difficulty in communication meant that he was never promoted. However, since 1999, he had given up applying for promotion. From then on until 2003, Tsui applied three times to join the Airport Security Unit, but failed. He failed a personality assessment during the first attempt, and subsequently failed because of insufficient fitness. Between 2002 and 2005, he was attached to the Tsing Yi
Tsing Yi
Tsing Yi , or Tsing Yi Island is an island in the urban area of Hong Kong, to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan. With an area of 10.69 km², the island has extended drastically by reclamation along almost all its natural shore and the annexation of Nga Ying Chau and Chau...
district.
Tsui's wife, Lee Po-ling, works at the Social Welfare Department as a social security assistant. The couple met when she worked as a sales assistant at the airport, and Tsui was also stationed there. They married in 1997 and they had a daughter in 2000.
In October 2001, Tsui and his wife appeared together in a couples version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Baak Maan Fu Yung
Baak Maan Fu Yung was a game show from Hong Kong, based on the original British format of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show's host was Kenneth Chan. The main goal of the game was to win 1 million Hong Kong dollars by answering 15 multiple-choice questions correctly. There were three...
on ATV
Asia Television Limited
Asia Television Limited is one of the two free-to-air television broadcasters in Hong Kong, the other being rival Television Broadcasts Limited . It launched in 1957 under the name Rediffusion Television as the first television station in Hong Kong...
and won HK$60,000, and they claimed they would donate some of the money to charity.
Tsui, who was an avid sportsman, was an Oxfam Trailwalker, participated in marathons, and also liked hang gliding
Hang gliding
Hang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider ....
. Unbeknownst to his wife, he would go to Mong Kok
Mong Kok
Mong Kok , less often known as Argyle , is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District on Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong...
and Shenzhen
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones...
weekly to frequent massage parlours, karaoke bars, and prostitutes
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. Also a habitual heavy gambler, Tsui was known to have made a HK$75,000 wager on Japan to win the 2004 Asian Cup final
2004 AFC Asian Cup
The 2004 AFC Asian Cup football competition is the thirteenth staging of AFC Asian Cup. It was held from July 17 to August 7, 2004 in China. The defending champions Japan defeated China in the final in Beijing....
at odds of 2.8:1 on 7 August 2004.
First murder
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
in March 2001. The 23 year old Leung, who was single, had been on the force for 5 years.
Answering a noise complaint in Tsuen Wan
Tsuen Wan
Tsuen Wan is a bay in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong, opposite to Tsing Yi Island across Rambler Channel. The market town of Tsuen Wan emerged for the surrounding villages and fleets of fishing boats in the area. The town is around the present-day Tsuen Wan Station of the MTR...
, on 14 March 2001, Leung was shot five times at close range. Leung took three bullets in the head and two in the back at 552 Shek To House Block B in Shek Wai Kok Estate. His revolver, a fully loaded .38 calibre Smith & Wesson
.38 S&W
The .38 S&W is a revolver cartridge developed by Smith & Wesson in 1877. Though similar in name, it is not interchangeable with the later .38 Smith and Wesson Special due to a different case shape and slightly larger bullet diameter....
revolver, and one extra clip of six bullets were missing.
The noise complaint was apparently bogus, and was made from an untraceable mobile phone. The police suspected that the officer was lured to the scene for his gun. Some 3,000 people, of which 2,000 police officers, were interviewed by the police, yet the perpetrator escaped detection. Later, forensic tests
Forensic biology
Forensic biology is the application of biology to law enforcement.It includes the subdisciplines of Forensic anthropology, Forensic botany, Forensic entomology, Forensic odontology and various DNA or protein based techniques.- Applications :...
found that the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
on a mask left at the crime scene
Crime scene
A crime scene is a location where an illegal act took place, and comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by trained law enforcement personnel, crime scene investigators or in rare circumstances, forensic scientists....
matched Tsui's.
Bank robbery
On 5 December 2001, Tsui planned and carried out armed bank robberyBank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
of a Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank Limited is the second largest bank in Hong Kong. It is a listed company but it is majority owned by the HSBC Group via The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Hang Seng is also one of the constituent shares of the Hang Seng Index...
branch at Belvedere Garden in Tsuen Wan, in which HK$
Hong Kong dollar
The Hong Kong dollar is the currency of the jurisdiction. It is the eighth most traded currency in the world. In English, it is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively HK$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
500,000 was stolen, and a Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i security guard was killed.
At 12.10 pm, a masked robber acting alone burst into the bank and shot a security guard. Zafar Iqbal Khan, aged 31, was shot three times by the robber, and died instantly. The perpetrator was a man with short hair and about 1.8m tall, which Assistant Police Commissioner Yam described as a "calm, cold-blooded and brutal robber". A HK$2 million reward was issued.
Mizuno Corp.
is a Japanese sports equipment and sportswear company, founded in Osaka in 1906 by Rihachi Mizuno. Today, Mizuno is a global corporation which makes a wide variety of sports equipment and sportswear, for golf, tennis, baseball, volleyball, football, running, rugby, skiing, cycling, judo, table...
brand shoes and the fact that footage showed the killer to be a left-handed gunman. He was placed near the scene by the Police: Tsui boarded a bus from Yut Tung Estate in Tung Chung
Tung Chung
Tung Chung, meaning 'eastern stream', is an area situated on the north-western coast of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Tung Chung, currently one of the latest generation of new towns, was formerly a rural village around Tung Chung Wan, and along the delta and lower courses of Tung Chung River and Ma...
at 11.11 am using the Octopus card
Octopus card
The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong...
issued to his wife; it was clocked in a minibus
Public light bus
A Public light bus is a common public mode of transport in Hong Kong. It mainly serves the area that standard Hong Kong bus lines cannot reach as efficiently. It is also colloquially known as a minibus or a van, defined as a kind of share taxi....
heading to Tsuen Wan at 11.53 am.
A red T-shirt carrying a similar distinctive logo as captured on CCTV was found at Tsui's home after his death. The T-shirt, bearing the logo of the Yinchuan International Motor-cycle Travel Festival was a gift to Tsui by the club secretary during his visit to the show in 2000, expert witness identified the T-shirt as having been worn inside-out during the robbery. Ballistics identified the gun used in the robbery as having been a police service revolver taken from murdered police officer Leung Shing-yan.
Financial irregularities
An investigation by the Central Intelligence Bureau into Tsui's financial status from January 2000 to March 2006 revealed he had a total of 19 personal banking and investment accounts hidden from his wife, total assets were HK$2,977,513. Seven personal and 12 investment accounts were opened under his name around mid-February in 2002, using a friend's address. Between February 2002 and October 2004, Tsui deposited HK$557,718 into the 19 accounts which could not be accounted for. All transactions were in cash. It was reported that Tsui was active in foreign exchange marketForeign exchange market
The foreign exchange market is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends...
, commodities, securities, funds and margin
Margin (finance)
In finance, a margin is collateral that the holder of a financial instrument has to deposit to cover some or all of the credit risk of their counterparty...
trading, and had lost a total of HK$371,982 in those investments.
Tsui and his wife bought one flat in August 1997, and paid HK$574,800 in cash. Two years later, he bought a flat at Tung Chung Crescent with a HK$396,173 down payment, paying monthly instalments of HK$17,778 for a first and a second mortgage. The mortgages were paid off in just five years – HK$388,151 in 2001 and HK$500,000 in 2004.
The police alleged that the transactions were inconsistent with a constable's salary, and that the $500,000 unexplained cash would be consistent with the bank's loss during the heist in 2001.
Subway ambush
Tsim Sha Tsui
Tsim Sha Tsui , often abbreviated as TST, is an urbanized area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hung Hom Bay now east of Tsim Sha Tsui...
pedestrian subway, triggering a shoot-out on 17 March 2006.
28 year old Constable Sin Ka-keung , survivor of the shoot-out, said that he and 33 year old Constable Tsang Kwok-hang were ambushed in the underpass at the junction of Austin
Austin Road
Austin Road is a road in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was named after John Gardiner Austin, Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1868 to 1879.-Location:...
and Canton
Canton Road
Canton Road is a road in Hong Kong, linking the former west reclamation shore in Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok on the Kowloon Peninsula. The road runs mostly parallel and west to Nathan Road. It starts from the junction with Salisbury Road in the south and ends in the north at the...
roads. Sin had seen a man lurking on the northern stairs of the subway before he was shot in the face. The attacker then tried to snatch his revolver. Tsui had started the exchange. Sin returned two shots, but missed. Sin grappled with the man and fired two shots before both of them slumped to the floor. Tsang was shot in the head and died, while Sin sustained gunshot wounds in the face and leg. Tsui was killed during the gun battle, having been shot five times in the torso by Tsang.
The police confirmed that the rusty revolver found beside Tsui's body to be the gun stolen from the late PC Leung in 2001.
Mental state
As the inquiry continued, Tsui was found to be an ambitious officer who often topped his class and did well in assessment tests. However, he was often denied promotions or opportunities to join elite units, such as the Airport Security UnitAirport Security Unit (Hong Kong)
The Airport Security Unit formed in 1977, is a special force of the Hong Kong Police Force tasked with the security of the Hong Kong International Airport....
.
He was not media shy, as was demonstrated by his appearance on a television game show; he was happily photographed when he won the chance to buy his flat in a draw. He was again happy to be photographed during the democracy rally on 1 July 2004 dressed in traditional Chinese funeral style ("披麻戴孝").
An associate professor of social science at the City University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong is a comprehensive research university in Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and became a fully accredited university in 1994. It has achieved fast growth in recent years and received international recognition for its academic achievements...
suggested that Tsui, like many criminals, did not know how to face frustration, and chose instead to take an illegal path in obtaining socially approved goals, such as money, prestige or recognition. It was suggested that the police force paid more attention to talented officers who fail to gain promotion, and recommended that there should be independent and confidential psychological counselling services for such troubled or frustrated officers.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
criminal profiler believed that Tsui's behaviour fit into most of the definitions of Schizotypal personality disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder, or simply schizotypal disorder, is a personality disorder that is characterized by a need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs.-Genetic:...
, while an expert from the Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology is an Australian university with an applied emphasis in courses and research. Based in Brisbane, it has 40,000 students, including 6,000 international students, over 4,000 staff members, and an annual budget of more than A$750 million.QUT is marketed as "A...
said Tsui's personality profile matched that of a serial killer who believed he was destined to change the world, probably tried to rise above his self-perceived unremarkable life by playing God, by taking lives.
Legacy
The Tsui Po-ko case has inspired some film and television productions, including:Documentaries
- Anatomy of a Crime: HK's Rogue Cop
Fiction
- Mad DetectiveMad DetectiveMad Detective is a 2007 Hong Kong psychological crime thriller film produced and directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai. The film centers on a schizophrenic, former police inspector , who decides to come out of retirement to help a rookie cop solve a complex murder case, involving a missing...
, a 2007 film - A Great Way To CareA Great Way to CareA Great Way To Care is a TVB modern series that was warehoused because TVB decided to air Sweetness in the Salt due to the success of Rosy Business...
《仁心解码》, a 2009 TVB series - The Men of Justice, a 2010 ATV series