This Christmas present may have seemed too good to be true, and it definitely was.
Police in Hong Kong arrested two people Thursday night who snatched money off of a Hong Kong highway after bins containing nearly US$2 million in cash (more than HK$15 million) fell from the back of an armored truck and showered the eight-lane section of Gloucester Road.
South China Morning Post reports that a a 43-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman were arrested after police located the money at the suspects' Kowloon City and Tseung Kwan O homes.
Christmas comes early! Scramble for cash after banknotes are spilled across busy road http://t.co/oGEQhXRczH pic.twitter.com/3lNjaQRsff— SCMP News (@SCMP_News) December 24, 2014
Christmas Eve frenzy as millions of dollars strewn across Hong Kong road after cash spill http://t.co/oGEQhXRczH pic.twitter.com/PHdbyyU2tM— SCMP News (@SCMP_News) December 24, 2014
Police chief inspector Addy Li Chi-kin told The Morning Post: "We found the money stored under the bed at their homes and they admitted they took the money on Gloucester [Road] after getting off the taxi they were in."
By midnight on Friday, more than a third of the cash lost in the spill (HK$5.69 million) had already been returned from 29 people.
Police are still reviewing CCTV footage to identify vehicles present during the cash shower and recover the $HK9 million still missing.