Coronavirus: Hong Kong man jailed for stealing 300 masks during Covid-19 pandemic
- Kwok Wai-hong, who is unemployed and lives on welfare, pleaded guilty to theft
- He said he needed a new mask ‘every two to three hours each day’, but a magistrate rejected the idea
A repeat offender who stole more than 300 surgical masks from a pharmacy was jailed for three months on Thursday, after a court dismissed his claim that he intended to use all of them on himself and his brother.
West Kowloon Court heard that Kwok Wai-hong, 46, stole seven boxes of masks, worth HK$1,870 (US$241) in total, from Lung Cheng Medicine in Mong Kok on March 20. He was intercepted by the store’s staff when he tried to take the masks from the premises without paying.
He claimed to police that he only forgot to pay, but a subsequent body search found that he had no money with him.
Kwok, an unemployed man who lives on welfare, had 21 previous convictions, 18 of which involved theft-related offences, prosecutors told Principal Magistrate Peter Law Tak-chuen.
Pleading guilty to theft, he told the court via his lawyers that he needed to use “a few masks every day” during the coronavirus pandemic because he was looking for a job, adding that he had wanted to share the stolen masks with his 48-year-old brother.
