Hong Kong police to investigate if Western Harbour Tunnel overcharging incident was deliberate, top official says
- The incident that saw thousands of motorists charged extra on Monday was caused by ‘human error’, Eric Chan says
- ‘We suspect someone tampered with the computer without reason, I believe this is not a technical error,’ official adds

Hong Kong police have been tasked with investigating whether a Western Harbour Tunnel toll collection incident that resulted in thousands of motorists being charged extra was intentional, a top official has said.
Acting chief executive Eric Chan Kwok-ki told a press briefing on Tuesday that an inquiry revealed the overcharging was caused by “human error”, which a tunnel employee using a previous system instead of the new one was behind.
“We asked the tunnel operator to immediately investigate this so-called human error, and a preliminary investigation showed that someone had interfered with the computer system resulting in erroneous charges,” he said.
“We suspect someone tampered with the computer without reason, I believe this is not a technical error.”

Chan also said that the government had asked police to follow up on the incident, stressing the force would press charges and severely punish those found to have tampered with or deliberately damaged the system.