A man wanted in connection with a murderous knife attack on a taxi driver on Queen’s Road West has been arrested at a grocery store on Lamma Island, police say.

Police say they arrested Mr Choi, 31, on Back Street on Wednesday evening, around 38 hours after the attack which killed taxi driver Mr Wai, 48, a father of three.

Video footage from Yung Shue Wan shows around 20 police in Islands uniform and plain clothes escorting Choi along Yung Shue Wan Pier, chased by a dozen locals, including children, trying to catch a glimpse of the alleged murderer. Choi was taken by police boat to Sai Wan Ho Marine Base, from where he was taken to an undisclosed location.

Choi is said to have repeatedly stabbed driver Wai in his Ford LPG-fuelled cab at around 4:54am on Tuesday morning at the junction of Queen’s Road West and Eastern Street. Wai was pronounced dead in Queen Mary Hospital at 6:17am, having never regained consciousness.

Police earlier said Choi was an extremely dangerous person with suspected violent tendencies. The city had been on high alert, with multiple reports of officers pouncing on citizens with similar look or build to the 6 ft suspect. A researcher with Transit Jam’s radio show Wham Bam Tram said police combed through his own hotel yesterday morning, checking all rooms. “Police got the hotel staff to pretend they needed to check something in the room, then I opened the door and it was actually the police,” he says. The researcher said there were too many police to fit into the small room.

In a tweet, police thanked “all citizens who gave info” which they said was “key to swift arrest”

#LongArmOfTheLaw|13/10—#HKPF arrested murder suspect(slashed driver in #SaiWan—12/10)upon citizen’s report of sighting of the man amid full-on probe on #Lamma.We thank all citizens who gave info—key to swift arrest.#Police-public collab—once again proved crucial in #FightingCrime https://t.co/xQnTVh1TdI pic.twitter.com/EUm2XmBLop

— Hong Kong Police Force (@hkpoliceforce) October 14, 2021

The suspect apparently left a string of messages on LinkedIn talking about mind control weapons

The suspect is thought to be the same man tried, and acquitted, for knife crimes in 2019. In that case, the defendant, Mr Choi, was caught with two knives engraved “My ELF weapon”, the same message engraved onto a tactical shotgun handle by a man who killed 12 in a US Navy Yard shooting in 2013. That Choi was acquitted when prosecutors could not prove the knives were to be used for illegal purposes.

A LinkedIn profile in Choi’s name, and with identical photo to Choi’s “wanted” photo, shows numerous messages linked to “ELF” or Extremely Low Frequency weapons and mind control. One post linked to the 2017 attacks on the US embassy in Cuba, where sonic weapons or microwaves were thought to have caused 26 Americans to report strange health symptoms possibly related to strange low-frequency noises directed at the embassy.

Police are holding Choi and are yet to announce a charge.

Choi was escorted by around 20 police in uniform and plain clothes. Police signalled onlookers to keep back but security at the scene appeared haphazard