Four mainlanders were arrested on Thursday after pretending to be “middle school staff members” ordering wheelchairs from a local man and scamming him out of HK$90,000, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok said in a special press conference on Friday.
The victim is a local construction engineering company staff, but the victim in a separate case who is also a construction engineering company staff member did not suffer from any loss, Ho said.
The four suspects are from mainland – a 38-year-old jobless man surnamed Zhuang, a 28-year-old pawn shop staff surnamed Liu, a 33-year-old businessman surnamed Cai, and a 34-year-old construction worker surnamed Qiu.
The quartet entered Macau at different times on December 1 and on Thursday, belonging to the same criminal syndicate, according to Ho, who pointed out that they had a “division of labour” with each other, such as collecting fraudulently obtained money, monitoring, acting as lookouts, and handling the defrauded money.
On Thursday, a local construction engineering company staff member received a telephone call from a “staff member” of a local middle school, saying that the school needed “renovations” and requested a quotation, Ho said.
The victim was also asked by one of the scammers to contact a wheelchair supplier in Hong Kong to assist the school in ordering 30 wheelchairs to be given to an elderly home for charitable purposes, and he was promised commission of HK$6,000 upon completion of the task, Ho said.
Upon ordering the goods, the victim received the screenshot of a HK$90,000 bank transfer from the suspect, claiming that it was the payment for an order of wheelchairs, Ho said. However, the victim immediately checked the amount through his online bank and discovered that there was no record of any transfer, so he reported the case to the police immediately.
After the police received the report, the victim received a call from a person claiming to be a wheelchair supplier, asking him to go to the northern district to collect the payment of HK$90,000 for the goods.
Realising this could be a chance to arrest the scammer, the police arranged for the victim to go there to collect the money, and when Zhuang showed up the police arrested him, Ho said.
Therefore, this victim did not suffer any loss.
After an in-depth investigation, the police found that three other men were involved in the case, and arrested the trio later that day in Zape, Ho said.
However, Judiciary Police officers received another report on Thursday in which the victim had been scammed in the same way on Wednesday. The victim gave HK$90,000 to the scammers for the “goods”, Ho said, adding that PJ officers believe that the two cases were conducted by the same group of scammers.
The police continue to track down other possible gang members, tracing the whereabouts of the scammed money and investigating whether there are more victims, according to Ho.
The foursome refused to cooperate with the police. They were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing fraud charges involving a considerably large sum of money and organised crime.
The four hooded mainland fraud suspects are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers to a PJ vehicle from the PJ headquarters in Zape.
Evidence such as Hong Kong dollars in cash, smartphones is displayed at a PJ press conference room on Friday during a special press conference about the case. – Photos: MGPD
