HONG KONG: Masked men stole around 240 luxury watches worth a reported $1.29m from a Hong Kong store in a matter of minutes early yesterday, police said.
The three burglars, who were also wearing hats, snatched the watches after they used a hammer to smash the glass door of the ground floor shop at around 6:30am local time. Watch shop robberies are rare in the southern Chinese city of seven million people, where only one such incident was recorded last year among a total of around 76,000 reported crimes.
Footage from Cable Television News showed heavily damaged glass display tables and a metal hammer at the shop, which was littered with glass fragments.
The trio made their escape after they boarded a grey van parked around the corner of the store, Cable TV reported.
Ex-vice mayor jailed for 3 years
BEIJING: A former vice mayor of China’s eastern city of Wenzhou was yesterday sentenced to three years in jail for abuse of power in a land deal, state media reported.
A court jailed Ye Jiren after he allotted a plot of land in Wenzhou to a private company against government rules for its use.
Wenzhou is known as a centre for private companies in China.
The move caused a direct economic loss of 116m yuan ($19m) for the government, the report said, but gave no further details.
Authorities detained Ye in 2011 and gave the case to prosecutors last year.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has vowed to crack down on corruption at all levels of the government. AFP
