Hong Kong police have arrested 125 people in a crackdown on a triad group accused of monopolising the food takeaway business for construction workers and operating illegal gambling dens. A construction site. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Police said on Monday that the triad group was active in East Kowloon, where a rise in residential projects has created an increased demand for takeaway lunchboxes among construction workers.
Acting Senior Superintendent Au Yeung Tak said the group threatened legitimate suppliers with extortion, arson and other violent means.
“Alternatively, they coerced these legitimate suppliers into paying them thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in so-called ‘site protection fees,’ thereby monopolising the meal box business at construction sites,” Au Yeung said.
The triad group itself recruited workers to make around 800 takeaway lunchboxes a day at a tin shed in Sai Kung, selling them for HK$50 each. The Hong Kong Police Force emblem outside the police headquarters in Wan Chai. File photo: Candice Chau/HKFP. “They used shabby tools and handled food from unknown origins in an unhygienic environment,” Chief Inspector Yam Suet-ying said in Cantonese.
“The mastermind would also arrange for two other members of the group and their workers to transport the lunchboxes to construction sites around East Kowloon, to set up booths and sell them on the spot,” she added.
Police arrested a 64-year-old mastermind, three core members of the group, and five workers on Friday.
The nine suspects are accused of committing offences including blackmail, criminal intimidation, operating an unlicensed food factory, and claiming to be a member of a triad society.
Yam said that in March, when undercover police went to a construction site in Sau Mau Ping in East Kowloon and posed as new takeaway lunchbox suppliers, they were harassed by members of the triad group. Items seized by police from the gambling establishments on July 4, 2026. Screenshot: Hong Kong Police Force. “They threatened the undercover officers and even destroyed the equipment they were using to sell their lunchboxes,” Yam said.
Separately, police said the triad group was also suspected of engaging in illegal gambling activities.
Officers raided four illegal gambling dens in the early hours of Saturday and arrested 116 people. They included 44 men and 72 women aged between 22 and 81.
They were suspected of operating a gambling establishment, assisting in the operation of a gambling establishment, and gambling in a gambling establishment.