Cheung Tsz-keung (1955–1998), nicknamed the Big Spender and known as a king of thieves of his century, was born in Yulin, Guangxi, though some records give his ancestral home as Yunan in Guangdong. He came to Hong Kong as a young child in the wave of illegal immigration and grew up in Temple Street, Yau Ma Tei, later becoming a permanent resident, and was linked to armed robberies, arms smuggling and a string of kidnappings. On 12 July 1991, three armed men robbed an armoured van at Kai Tak Airport of about HK$170 million; Cheung was arrested that September, sentenced to 18 years in 1992 and then freed on appeal on 22 June 1995. On 23 May 1996 he and his gang kidnapped Victor Li, eldest son of tycoon Li Ka-shing, holding him at a disused chicken farm in Fanling and demanding a record HK$1.038 billion, of which he personally took about HK$362 million. On 29 September 1997 he kidnapped Walter Kwok, chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, stripping him and keeping him in a small wooden crate, and demanded HK$600 million; Kwok was released but suffered depression and needed more than a year of treatment. In October that year he plotted to kidnap the Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho but was foiled. In January 1998, while police hunted him over some 800 kg of explosives and more than 2,000 detonators stored in a stone hut in Ma Tso Lung, he fled to the mainland, where he and a gang member were later arrested off Jiangmen. He sought extradition back to Hong Kong to avoid the death penalty, arguing that his crimes were committed there, but was refused. A Guangzhou court convicted him of illegally trading explosives, kidnapping and arms smuggling and sentenced him to death and to the confiscation of 662.1 million yuan; he was executed on the mainland on 5 December 1998, aged 43. With Yip Kai-foon and Kwai Ping-hung he was known as one of Hong Kong's three kings of thieves.
Cheung Tsz-keung's kidnappings brought in more than HK$1.6 billion in ransoms, and his 1996 plot against Li Ka-shing's son was cited as a record for kidnapping cases. The crimes heightened concern about personal security among Hong Kong's wealthy and about cross-border serious crime.
Achievements
- 1996 · Kidnapped Victor Li, eldest son of Li Ka-shing, demanding a ransom of HK$1.038 billion.
- 1997 · Kidnapped Walter Kwok, chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, demanding HK$600 million.
- 1998 · Was arrested on the mainland and executed on 5 December.