Four locals – a male and three females – allegedly cheated four mainlanders out of over one million patacas as “facilitating payments” so that their children would be able to enrol in a local university, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said at a special press conference yesterday.
While the male suspect was arrested on Monday, the three females were arrested in 2019.
The 27-year-old male suspect surnamed Choi told the police that he works as a graphic design instructor. The three female suspects comprise a 32-year-old woman surnamed Cheong who owns an investment company, a 33-year-old woman surnamed Tong who works for Cheong’s company as managing director, and a 27-year-old woman surnamed Chan who works in Cheong’s company as a cashier. The three women were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on September 2, 2019 for questioning after which they were released on their own recognisance. The trio are still awaiting trial.
According to Lei, the Public Security Police (PSP) notified the Judiciary Police on August 30, 2019 that four mainlanders reported that they had been cheated by Cheong and Tong out of more than a million patacas.
The four victims told the police that their children’s university entrance examination results were not satisfactory and they worried that their children would not be able to enter their favoured university in Macau. Lei did not reveal the name of the university.
The four victims asked Cheong, who claimed that she was able to contact the “university council” and thus assist them in getting their children enrolled. They together paid Cheong HK$200,000 and 754,300 yuan (933,000 patacas) as “facilitating payments” by cash or remittance between June and July 2019.
On August 29, 2019 the victims and their children went to the university where they presented the purported admission letters to formalise their respective enrolments. It was then that the parents discovered that the university had no record of their children’s admission.
The victims afterwards discussed the case with Cheong multiple times but failed to come up with a solution. The victims suspected that they had been defrauded and finally reported the case to the police.
Lei said that the Judiciary Police discovered that besides Cheong and Tong, Cheong’s company cashier (Chan) was also involved in the case. Under questioning, the three women admitted that they were unable to assist the victims’ children to enrol in the local university. They admitted that they were just intermediaries looking for parents willing to pay “facilitating payments” for which Choi paid each of them between 36,000 patacas and 40,000 patacas. Cheong admitted that she collected the payments according to Choi’s instructions.
According to Lei, the Judiciary Police subsequently contacted the then Education and Youth Affairs Bureau and confirmed that the victims’ admission letters were forged, and that the university had no admission records of the students.
After further investigation, PJ officers discovered that Choi had used computer software to forge the admission letters and sent emails purporting to have been sent by the university to the students.
The officers later confirmed that Choi had travelled to the mainland on August 4, 2019. The Judiciary Police liaised with the mainland police through Interpol, and the mainland’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) arrested Choi in Zhuhai on Monday, after which he was handed back to Macau.
Lei said that Choi admitted to defrauding the mainlanders with the help of the three female accomplices, saying that after forging the admission letters and sending fake emails, he forwarded the letters to Tong who then gave them to the victims.
Choi was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing fraud and document forgery charges, according to Lei.
The fraud suspect is being escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle yesterday. Photo courtesy of TDM
