Murder of Poon Hiu-wing

Amber Poon Hiu-wing (5 August 1997 – 17 February 2018) was a 20-year-old pregnant woman from Hong Kong who was killed while on vacation in Taipei with her boyfriend, Chan Tong-kai, then 19 and from Shenzhen. The two had met in July 2017 while working part-time for the same company, began a relationship a month later, and by the end of 2017 Poon was pregnant. Chan arranged and paid for a trip to Taiwan in February 2018.

On the night of 16–17 February 2018, at the Purple Garden Hotel in Taipei's Datong District, the couple argued over packing a newly bought suitcase, reconciled, and later had another argument around 2 am in which Poon revealed the child she carried had been conceived with a former boyfriend and showed Chan a video of herself with another man. According to court documents, Chan reacted by smashing her head against the wall and strangling her; the two struggled for around 10 minutes until she died. Chan folded her body into the suitcase, disposed of her belongings, and the next morning dragged the suitcase via the Taipei Metro to Zhuwei station, where he dumped her body along the Tamsui River. He withdrew money from her bank account before flying back to Hong Kong that night, and withdrew further funds over the following two days.

Poon's parents reported her missing to Hong Kong police on 5 March 2018. Using departure/arrival card information, her father traveled to Taipei and sought local police help; hotel surveillance footage showed Poon entering with Chan but only Chan leaving, dragging the suitcase. Following contact between Taiwanese and Hong Kong investigators, Chan confessed under caution and was arrested by Hong Kong police on 13 March 2018. Poon's decomposed body was found in Taiwan the same day; an autopsy found her neck bone missing and ruled her death a homicide.

Because the killing occurred in Taiwan, Hong Kong lacked jurisdiction to charge Chan with murder or manslaughter, and no extradition treaty existed between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chan was instead charged with theft and handling stolen goods, later amended to four counts of money laundering tied to funds withdrawn from Poon's account. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced on 29 April 2019 to 29 months in prison, and was released on 23 October 2019 after credit for remand time and a sentence reduction for good behavior. Taiwanese prosecutors separately sought to charge Chan with murder and illegal disposal of a body, issuing a warrant in December 2018, but could not secure his transfer.

In February 2019, the Hong Kong government cited this case in proposing amendments to extradition ordinances that would allow case-by-case transfers to jurisdictions without formal treaties, including Taiwan and mainland China. Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked letters from Poon's parents in urging swift passage. Concerns over extending extradition powers to mainland China led to mass protests, including a march estimated at hundreds of thousands to over a million people on 9 June 2019, and a prolonged standoff outside the Legislative Council on 12 June 2019. Lam suspended the bill on 15 June 2019 and formally withdrew it on 23 October 2019, the same day Chan was released from prison. Subsequent efforts to arrange Chan's voluntary surrender to Taiwan stalled amid political disputes between Hong Kong and Taiwanese authorities, and as of the available reporting Chan remained in Hong Kong.