A Hong Kong woman was arrested in a restaurant in Nape on Tuesday for cheating seven locals out of 3.6 million yuan (4.46 million patacas) in an e-commerce investment scam since 2019, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a special press conference yesterday.
The 38-year-old jobless suspect is surnamed Ho. The seven local victims comprise two men and five women aged between 34 and 40 – five businesspersons, an insurance broker and an unemployed resident.
According to the spokesman, the seven victims reported to the Judiciary Police on Monday and Tuesday that they had been cheated out of a total of 3.6 million yuan by a Hong Kong woman who claimed that she was using a web live streaming app store from the mainland for profitable business opportunities. She told the victims that she could help them benefit from high-return investments.
One of the victims told the police that she met Ho when she was shopping in Ho’s fashion shop in a shopping mall in Zhuhai in 2019. The victim then introduced Ho to the other six victims.
The spokesman said the victims told the police that they invested between September 2019 and April this year. The investments involved clothing and red wine.
Each investment period was 30 days, offering a return on investment (ROI) of 20 percent.
The victims told the police that initially Ho paid six of them between 20,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan.
Afterwards, Ho pushed them to inject more funds, and the victims then paid Ho between tens of thousands and over a million yuan each.
According to the spokesman, after receiving the money from the victims, Ho issued each of them with a “loan agreement” and an e-commerce purchase contract as “proof”.
Afterwards, Ho told the victims that she was unable to pay them back the principal and earnings due to purported delays in e-commerce payments, and she even asked the victims to further raise their investments as otherwise they would be unable to get back any of their money.
As the victims were still unable last month to get back their money they decided to report the case to the police.
According to the spokesman, the Judiciary Police identified Ho and discovered that she returned to Macau from Zhuhai on Tuesday afternoon. PJ officers arrested her in a restaurant in Nape later that day. Under questioning, Ho denied that she defrauded the seven victims. She told the police that she had received a total of 2.8 million yuan from the “investors” between last September and April. She claimed that she had used the money to place orders with clothing manufacturers and red wine sellers. However, she claimed, that the manufacturers and sellers owed her 4.2 million yuan because of which she was unable to pay back the investors.
The spokesman said that Ho was unable to provide any proof such as the orders she allegedly placed with the manufacturers and sellers, remittances, payment and delivery records, and contact information.
According to the spokesman, the Judiciary Police believe that Ho’s claims are false and believe that she had never placed any investment-related orders.
Ho was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing fraud charges, according to the spokesman.
The hooded Hong Kong fraud suspect is escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle yesterday. Photos: Iong Tat Choi
Evidence seized by the Judiciary Police (PJ) such as purported loan agreements and purchase contracts, five ATM cards and two smartphones is displayed at the PJ headquarters yesterday.
