The watch was eventually - one year later - returned to its rightful owner. This lost property case was just one of the many that have left a lasting impression on the Tsim Sha Tsui Division Property Office's Assistant Clerical Officer, Lee Kwok-mei, during her service in the office.

During an interview with OffBeat, ACO Lee said: "You won't forget the case when the lost item has an extremely high value - over a million Hong Kong dollars. It was a wristwatch left behind by a Japanese tourist in a hotel safe box! We had tried every means to trace the owner through the hotel and the Consulate, and placed a notice on newspapers, but to no avail."

The tourist told the Property Office that after returning to Japan, he was seriously injured in a traffic accident and went into a coma for a long time. This explains why ACO Lee could hardly trace him in the first place.

Right now there is an assortment of luggage bags, notebooks, mobile phones, pens, sweaters, shoes, handbags and other miscellaneous items systematically displayed on a rack in the Property Office, waiting to be claimed by their owners.

"Since Tsim Sha Tsui is a tourist area, we've a lot of lost property cases coming in. Each month, we've to handle over 100 cases," the office's Sub-unit Commander, Woman Senior Inspector Susan Li Yuen-mei told OffBeat. "In many cases, information about these properties is sketchy, but thanks to my staff's unfailing efforts in tracing the owners, we manage to return over 40 per cent of the items to their owners."

An interesting and challenging job

ACO Lee said she found her job interesting and challenging. She noted: "Seeing the happy faces of owners claiming back their belongings gives me a lot of satisfaction. In some cases it's easy to trace the owner. For example, if we find a mobile phone, we can get information from the SIM card and the service provider. But in most cases, we have few clues to go by and we have to use our brain. This is the challenge of the job!"

Modern technology has offered a big help for tracing the owners of lost property.

Citing an example of this, ACO Lee said: "Through the Internet, we located the owner of a luggage bag, who was studying in New Zealand. Before this we had practically nothing to go by except the portrait of a student in uniform inside the bag. Luckily enough we managed to figure out the school name from the badge on the uniform. The next thing to do was to search the web for the school's contact details and email the portrait for identification.

"When the luggage bag was eventually returned to its owner, the student was very happy and surprised because he never expected to get back anything that he had lost," noted ACO Lee.

Though being a clerical officer, ACO Lee has also developed a detective mind through handling countless lost and found items. For example, in locating the owner of a student card, she discovered that it was a fake card and referred the case to the Criminal Investigation Division. It later transpired that the owner had bought the fake card in order to enjoy price discounts for concert tickets and magazines, etc.

WSIP Li said the cases demonstrated the professionalism and dedication with which ACO Lee discharges her duties. She is proud of having a colleague who is proactive and tries her very best in locating lost property owners.

She is also pleased that ACO Lee has earned District Commander's Compliments on several occasions with her outstanding performance.

ACO Lee briefs WSIP Li on a lost property case