How four fugitives lost their escape money

A middleman who assisted four fugitives including a rioting suspect who survived a police gunshot wound during a 2019 protest has been accused of pocketing money meant to help the quartet flee Hong Kong.

The four made the accusation in a video shot in a Tsuen Wan industrial building in November.

They failed in an attempt to flee to Vietnam by boat on July 14 after being arrested in Sai Kung.

In the seven-minute video obtained by The Standard's sister publication Eastweek, the four men aged 16 to 24 - including 21-year-old Tsang Chi-kin, who was shot at close range in the chest by a policeman on October 1, 2019 - sat next to each other and spoke in turn.

They defended YouTube channel Tuesday Road, which people accused of using the four as fundraising tools, and channel hosts Johnny Fok and Tony Choi.

Their message was that Tuesday Road helped with a place to hide and sought ways out of Hong Kong for them.

The four added that a man named Chan Sai-tak had in fact betrayed Tuesday Road and lied to them.

He had raised funds on their behalf but cheated large sums out of donors in the United Kingdom.

They added. "Everything he had taken part in ended in failure."

They said they wanted to follow a Tuesday Road escape route to Vietnam. But two changed their minds and chose to believe in Chan. Each paid Chan HK$200,000 for his escape plan.

Fok and Choi, who live in London, told Eastweek they made every effort to help the four flee. But as they were not in Hong Kong they commissioned a middleman to take care of the four.

But the middleman pocketed money intended to be used to look after the quartet.

According to bank transaction records, Fok and Choi handed over HK$640,000 to the middleman between January and November last year.

Then they discovered a "Jordan Auntie" had also been raising funds in Tsang's name. And they found it suspicious the middleman had demanded more money after receiving large sums.

Fok and Choi eventually lined up a Taiwanese to arrange for the quartet to flee to Vietnam by boat and they asked the four to shoot the video as their "last words."

The two explained: "We've heard there were protesters who fled on boats who were thrown into the sea. If anything goes wrong we will show the video to their parents to also prove our innocence."

However, as the date to flee neared Hong Kong law enforcers stepped up boat inspections.

The duo took that as a sign the escape plan had been exposed, so the four had no choice but to accept an escape plan from Chan.

Fok and Choi said: "We met Chan Sai-tak in September 2020, who at the time said he wanted to come to the UK."

In response to online claims that Tuesday Road used the quartet to garner donations to support Fok and Choi in luxury in London, the channel hosts said they have been doing well in their own businesses.

Fok was a barrister in Hong Kong for over 10 years before he and Choi moved to the UK in 2020.