Four local men surrendered to the police on Thursday night to confess that they were involved in the daylight robbery of a trading shop’s goods worth 2.4 million patacas in the Barrier Gate district earlier that day, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a special press conference on Friday.
The four jobless suspects are surnamed Ho, Chan, Lei and another Ho aged between 25 and 35.
According to the spokesman, the Public Security Police (PSP) transferred the case to the Judiciary Police on Thursday. The male shop owner reported to the Public Security Police at about 1 p.m. on that day a robbery had occurred at his shop about 10 minutes previously. According to the owner, 30 cartons of goods including daily necessities and cosmetics worth about 2.4 million patacas had been robbed. He told the police that his mother and a male friend were in the shop earlier that day. Three men and a woman suddenly entered the shop and told them to stand to the side. They went to the storeroom and used a trolley to move goods out of the shop. One of the men snatched the smartphone of the owner’s friend to stop him from calling the police.
The spokesman said that the four men, who later surrendered to the police, at that time were waiting outside the shop and moved the goods to a lorry parked there. The owner’s mother at some time during the robbery was later able to call him and his wife, saying that the shop was being robbed. The owner and his wife rushed back to the shop and tried to stop the men from taking the goods but to no avail, so the owner reported the case to the police.
The spokesman said that the four suspects surrendered to the Public Security Police on Thursday night, saying that they were involved in the case. Under questioning, the four men admitted to receiving 300 yuan each to assist a man to move the goods to a lorry from the trading shop. However, they claimed that they did not know who owned the goods, nor did they know the lorry driver. They also claimed they did not even know to where the goods were to be taken. The Judiciary Police are continuing their investigation into the case and other suspects who were on the run at the time of the press conference.
The quartet were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing a robbery charge, according to the spokesman.
The four robbery suspects are being escorted by the Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle on Friday. Photo courtesy of TDM.
