Abby Choi, the 'influencer' dismembered who has returned from oblivion

BarcelonaIf when celebrities were famous for their craft, the fact of becoming more well-known was considered an asset to their artistic careers, imagine what happens with most of today's celebrities, who have no talent and have grown only in the arbitrary warmth of the algorithm. What wouldn't they be willing to do to get a few morefollowers if that is the only thing that can provide them with more income, since they have no other business avenue? They would do – and do – whatever it takes! For example, talking about their weddings, their children, their fights, and all their miseries. All this and also amplifying any little good thing that happens to them to achieve a little more prestige and relevance.

This was the life of Abby Choi, a young woman from Hong Kong who managed to make a name for herself as an influencer in the world of fashion throughout her youth. She was one of those who did whatever it took and, in the end, she succeeded. Her efforts in the form of continuous content creation turned her into a significant figure within the fashion industry. In that complicated context, she managed over time to sit in the front rows of the main shows at Paris Fashion Week, star on the covers of industry headlines, and mingle with the creative directors of the most established luxury firms.

From dream to terror

But this dream come true, the life on this Olympus that so many people crave, was suddenly cut short. On February 21, 2023, she was supposed to go pick up one of her four children from school, but she did not show up. Shortly after, her family reported her missing. Following some leads, on February 24, the police arrived at a house in the rural Hong Kong district of Tai Po, and the officers found two human legs inside a refrigerator. In the home, there were also personal documents belonging to Abby Choi, as well as other human remains and an electric saw, which they considered relevant to the investigation. On February 26, the police announced that they had also found a skull inside a pot at the house, which was believed to be hers. DNA tests finally confirmed that all those remains found belonged to Abby Choi, who at the time was highly followed on Instagram but also on Douyin, the Chinese TikTok.

She was 28 years old. Her case was notorious both inside and outside the former British colony. So much so that international agencies covered her funeral, held in June. The family could not resist turning the ceremony into something Instagrammable, and decorated everything with meters and meters of pastel pink curtains, the representative color of the influencer on her social media. Hundreds of people said goodbye to her in a residential neighborhood of Hong Kong located a few kilometers from the place where the macabre discovery had been made. Her four children were present at that Buddhist funeral, where her husband at the time, Chris Tam, father of the two youngest children, also attended. Wreaths of flowers sent by celebrities from the region accompanied them.

The ex-family, under suspicion

The one who did not attend the funeral was her first husband, Alex Kwong, who had been imprisoned since February of that year after he was caught trying to leave Hong Kong by boat. He was accused of his ex-wife's crime along with his father and brother. Three men who this week have sat in the dock at the start of a trial that faces them with a life sentence for events that traumatized a city. The start of the trial and the secrets it has brought to the table have had even more international coverage than her death, as the press from half the world has reported on it.

The prosecution asserts that the motive for the crime was an 8 million euro apartment that Abby Choi bought –while she was still married to Kwong– and which she placed in the name of her then-father-in-law, a retired police officer, through whom she wanted to save on taxes. The situation remained like that even after she got divorced. In fact, she allowed him to live there for years. The problem arrived when she decided to sell it and the man did not want her to. At that moment, they maintain, was when they would have begun to plan the crime, since if she died everything would remain as it was and they would become owners of the apartment without any opposition.

Deadly help?

The trial has revealed to her second family-in-law –that of her second marriage– that she had never stopped supporting her first family-in-law. What remains unclear is the reason. However, it seems plausible that she did so because they had threatened to reveal something that could cause her to fall into disgrace as an influencer. "She trusted the wrong people. This family returned her kindness with enmity," said her mother, Cheung Yin-fa, who says that the Kwong family had previously threatened her daughter with death.

The influencer's willingness to help her former in-laws was such that she even had Anthony Kwong, her ex-husband's brother, as her chauffeur. He was the one who drove her to pick up her son the day he disappeared forever. The prosecution has argued during the trial that her ex-husband was also in the car that day, and that he was armed with a hammer.

Family secrets

But that has not been what has most surprised Hong Kong's high society, of which both the late woman's political families and her biological family are a part. One of the biggest discoveries has been that both her first husband and her second husband had been friends, and that, in fact, it had been Alex Kwong – the first one – who had introduced her to Chris Tam – the second one –, whom Abby married shortly after divorcing. Both had gone to school together as children. During the trial, the defense even asked Tam if during his student days he had attempted to maintain a romantic and sexual relationship with Alex, which he denied.

It has also emerged that the two in-law families Abby Choi had were helping each other even when she had already divorced her first husband and, in principle, were at odds. Chris Tam had allegedly incurred a debt in Macau casinos worth more than half a million euros and, unable to pay it off, Alex Kwong's father –the retired police officer– had allegedly used his old contacts to avoid major trouble. The gambling addiction of the poor influencer's mother has also revealed a new facet of the case. As it has transpired, Cheung Yin-fa had been involved in a dispute over a debt of 180,000 euros incurred with a woman she used to meet to play mahjong, a traditional tile game. Questioned during a court hearing, the woman admitted that she had lost "several tens" of millions of Hong Kong dollars in a casino.

While living with all these families, Abby Choi managed to become an international icon in her sector. Upon her death, she left her children an inheritance with assets estimated in 2023 at around 35 million euros. Surrounded by such a dark lineage, it remains to be seen if anything will be left for them when they reach the age of 18...