A local man was arrested last Tuesday at the Barrier Gate checkpoint for cheating two mainlanders and a local resident out of more 146,000 patacas, claiming that he could find jobs for two of them and help the third victim to apply for a business visa, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference on Friday.
The 26-year-old man surnamed Choi told the police that he is unemployed.
According to Lou, the three victims reported to the Judiciary Police separately between August and September this year that they had been defrauded by Choi out of 146,800 patacas in total.
They told the police separately that a friend had introduced Choi to them a few months ago. The two mainlanders said that Choi claimed that he was able to help them find a job in Macau.
The local victim said that Choi promised assistance in applying for a business visa.
The three victims paid the money to Choi as supposed “introduction and handling fees”. Afterwards, Choi came up with a range of excuses for delaying what he had promised them, and later stopped answering the victims’ phone calls.
Lou said that PJ officers identified Choi as the suspect in the three separate fraud cases and arrested him when he re-entered Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint last Tuesday. Under questioning, Choi admitted to defrauding the victims and claimed that he had spent all the ill-gotten money on his daily expenses.
Choi has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a fraud charge, according to Lou.
This photo released by the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) on Saturday shows firefighters and police officers coaxing the worker down from the top of the scaffolding on the construction site of the Cotai hospital project’s central laboratory.
