A local woman handed herself in to a Judiciary Police station on Saturday for cheating her local male friend out of HK$4.1 million to invest in a luxury watch and designer handbag business, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a regular press conference on Wednesday.
The 36-year-old jobless local suspect is surnamed Iong.
According to Ho, Iong went to the Judiciary Police station on Saturday to surrender and confessed that she had jointly invested with a male friend in luxury watches and designer handbags in the middle of last year. The victim had known her boyfriend for a long time. They bought the goods at cost price, and then sold them at the market price to earn the difference. Iong told the police that she was addicted to gambling since September last year and gambled away HK$3.5 million which was given to her by the victim for the business.
Iong said she falsely claimed to her friend that many customers wanted to buy watches and handbags, and asked from him for an additional amount for the investment. The victim gave a total of HK$4.1 million to Iong who then gambled away HK$3.5 million in local casinos. Iong told the police that she pretended that the business was profitable by depositing the remaining HK$600,000 in a number of tranches into the victim’s bank account.
Iong also told the police that she had changed some of the bank deposit receipts to show larger amounts and sent them to the victim via WeChat. However, the victim had not checked his bank statements until the Judiciary Police contacted him about the fraud. Iong told the police that she felt guilty about what she did so she surrendered to the police.
Iong was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Monday, facing charges of computer fraud and fraud involving a considerable amount, officially defined as exceeding 150,000 patacas, according to Ho.
