3rd November 2026 – (Hong Kong) Police arrested a 61-year-old local man in Central yesterday on suspicion of administering poison with intent to injure, after Japanese DJ Mao Hamasaki was allegedly spiked at a Tsim Sha Tsui Halloween private party and tested positive for four drugs.
Ms Hamasaki, 33, a former adult-film actress working as DJ Mao, collapsed in the early hours of 1st November at Club PP on Mody Road. She was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where tests reportedly showed so-called Happy water, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine. She had noticed white powder-like sediment in her glass. Officers first listed the case as administering poison with intent to cause harm.
Yau Tsim District’s Crime Investigation Support Team 2 later took over. After further inquiries, they detained the 61-year-old in Central on 2nd November. He remains in custody for questioning. Police said his relationship to Ms Hamasaki and any alleged motive are still under investigation.
Her manager, Mak, had earlier described how she finished a Wan Chai restaurant set, then accepted a big client’s invitation to continue at the Mody Road private venue. She lost a Liar’s Dice round and drank what they took for a sweet cocktail; after her set she collapsed and began seizing. Mak insisted on calling police and sending her to hospital, where she spent time in intensive care. After the scare he briefly berated a female venue figure in the street. On the afternoon of 1st November Ms Hamasaki posted on social media to say she was safe and to apologise for the worry caused.
On 2nd November she published a long Japanese account on X, calling the episode her first brush with drugs and pledging to warn others about unattended drinks. She said her awareness had returned, that a psychiatric review that afternoon would decide on discharge, and that she would cooperate with police, making the post her last personal public word on the case. She later left hospital with Mak to give a statement.
In that Japanese narrative she recalled two orange-flavoured cocktail shots before the second set, mistaking cloudy sediment for fruit pulp, then blurred memory, dry eyes, another toast, locked limbs and waking in an ambulance amid convulsions. Doctors, she wrote, had said the markers and the danger were serious. Reporters who called at Club PP found it closed, with staff declining to speak, while drug dogs and plain-clothes officers later searched the premises.
Under the Offences against the Person Ordinance, administering poison or a noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy is an indictable offence carrying up to three years’ imprisonment. For now a Central arrest puts a name to the inquiry that began with a Halloween glass on Mody Road, an ICU scare and a manager — Mak, suspected to be her husband — who refused to treat the collapse as mere exhaustion.
