Yip Kai-foon (1961–2017) was born in Haifeng, Guangdong, had only a primary-three education and swam to Hong Kong at seventeen, becoming one of the best-known armed-robbery gang leaders in 1990s Hong Kong. Born into poverty, he could only take manual jobs in Hong Kong before turning to armed robbery. From 1984 he robbed a string of gold and watch shops at gunpoint; after being caught and jailed for sixteen years, he escaped in 1989 while being taken to hospital after complaining of abdominal pain. Resurfacing in 1991, he staged a two-year spree of jewellery-shop robberies worth tens of millions of dollars, most famously holding up five gold shops on Mut Wah Street in Kwun Tong in about ten minutes and brandishing an AK-47 in the street during a standoff with police, footage that stunned the city; police listed him as a most-wanted fugitive with a HK$1 million reward. In May 1996, while plotting with Cheung Tsz-keung to kidnap Li Ka-shing's eldest son Victor Li, he was shot in Sai Wan and captured, paralysed from the waist down. Sentenced to 41 years, reduced on appeal to 36 years and three months, he was nicknamed, with Cheung Tsz-keung and Kwai Ping-hung, one of Hong Kong's Three Great Bandits. He died of lung cancer while in custody at Queen Mary Hospital on 19 April 2017, aged 55. His story has been adapted into films, including Trivisa (2016), which drew on the Three Great Bandits, and it remains part of the city's folklore.
Yip's string of armed robberies thrust law and order to the centre of public concern in 1990s Hong Kong, and the image of him raising an AK-47 in the street was seared into popular memory; repeatedly adapted for film, notably in Trivisa, he became a symbol within the city's culture of crime.
Achievements
- 1991 · Re-emerged to stage a series of gold-shop robberies, notably on Mut Wah Street in Kwun Tong.
- 1996 · Was shot and captured in Sai Wan, left paralysed from the waist down, and later sentenced to 41 years.
- 2017 · Died of illness in Stanley Prison.