A local woman in her forties reported to the Judiciary Police (PJ) on Friday that she had been cheated out of more than 440,000 patacas by a “doctor from Mali” in an online dating scam, PJ spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at yesterday’s press conference.
According to Lou, the victim told the police that she met a male netizen on a social media app in early June. The man told the victim that he was a doctor working in Mali in West Africa, and they soon became online lovers.
The victim said that her “online boyfriend” told her on July 1 that he planned to retire but he needed to pay 95,000 patacas before his retirement and hoped that the victim could advance the payment, after which he would come to Macau marry her and pay her back the money. The victim transferred the amount to an account provided by her “boyfriend” who asked her again on July 12 to transfer 160,000 patacas to him as he wanted to fly out on a private jet because of the current civil war in Mali. The victim subsequently transferred the money to the scammer.
On July 20, the scammer claimed to be in Beijing, but needed 300,000 patacas to apply for a “health certificate” to come to Macau. The victim told the scammer that she did not have enough money and transferred 150,000 patacas to him. Subsequently, the scammer claimed that he needed 200,000 patacas to pay for an “aircraft downtime fee”. The victim borrowed 40,000 patacas from a friend and transferred it to an account provided by the scammer who later asked the victim to send him money again. The victim told the scammer that she could no longer borrow money and the scammer immediately severed contact with her. The victim finally realised that she had been defrauded and reported the case to the police, Lou said.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai looks on during a press conference at the PJ headquarters yesterday.
