Police on Monday said they have arrested 125 people over suspicions that a triad syndicate used intimidation, arson, criminal damage and other violent means to corner the lunch box business at building sites.

The Organised Crime and Triad Bureau said a recent surge in residential projects in East Kowloon created a sharp rise in demand for takeaway meals among construction workers and it is thought that a triad group decided it wanted to seize control of the market.

Chief Inspector Yam Suet-ying said officers uncovered an unlicensed food factory set up in a tin shed in Sai Kung where workers were hired to churn out around 800 lunch boxes a day.

At HK$50 per box, the operation netted almost HK$1 million a month in total, Yam said.

Acting Senior Superintendent Au Yeung Tak said a triad group is also suspected of threatening legitimate meal box suppliers using "methods such as extortion, arson, criminal damage and other illegal violent means".

"Alternatively, they coerced these legitimate suppliers into paying them thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in so-called 'site protection fees', thereby monopolising the meal box business at construction sites," Au said.

Officers said that as part of their operation, they went undercover at a construction site in Sau Mau Ping, posing as a new supplier of lunch boxes. They were immediately confronted by a gang who threatened them, damaged their vending equipment and demanded tens of thousands of dollars as a "protection fee".

The bureau said it arrested 48 men and 77 women, aged between 22 and 81, and seized assets worth HK$4 million, including luxury watches, delivery trucks and gambling paraphernalia.



Edited by Thomas McAlinden