A Hong Kong woman was arrested last week at the Barrier Gate checkpoint for defrauding a mainlander by pawning his Piaget watch worth HK$500,000 for just HK$66,000 last month, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference on Monday.
The 51-year-old jobless suspect is surnamed Muk.
According to Lou, the Public Security Police (PSP) referred a fraud case to the Judiciary Police last Monday in which a Hong Kong woman cheated a 45-year-old male mainlander by pawning his luxury watch worth half a million Hong Kong dollars for only HK$66,000.
The victim told the police that he needed cash urgently last month and so he wanted to pawn his watch to raise some cash. A friend introduced him to Muk, saying that she could help him to pawn his watch for a high price ranging between HK$600,000 and HK$800,000. The victim gave Muk his watch on June 13 in a hotel in Cotai. Afterwards, he lost contact with Muk and reported the case to the police.
Lou said PJ officers discovered that Muk had gone to the mainland via the Barrier Gate checkpoint on June 14 and arrested her last Thursday when she returned to Macau. Under questioning, Muk admitted that she pawned the victim’s watch in a hock shop in Nape for HK$66,000 to pay off her gambling debts. The Judiciary Police later retrieved the watch from the shop.
Muk was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) last Friday, facing fraud charges, according to Lou.
