Macau’s various public security forces recorded a total of 5,915 crimes in the first half of the year, a year-on-year growth of 26.1 percent, according to a statement by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) yesterday.
However, the statement pointed out that compared with the number of crimes recorded in the first half of 2019 – i.e. before the COVID-19 pandemic – the number of crimes recorded in the first six months of this year decreased 14.5 percent.
Macau confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January last year.
The statement underlined that the number of violent crime cases didn’t rise in the first half of this year, aside from the fact that the number of serious violent crimes remained “very low” – including two homicides, the same number recorded in the first six months of last year.
The statement attributed the 26.1 percent overall increase in recorded crimes in the first six months of the year to the impact of the novel coronavirus situation on local people’s lives such as that they spent more time on the Internet to make new friends and to buy goods online, apart from increased street patrols and anti-crime operations by the police.
The number of fraud cases – including cyber fraud – increased to 667 in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of nearly 50 percent.
According to the statement, the public security forces will further develop “smart policing” and step up intelligence exchanges and cooperation with their counterparts in neighbouring regions.
The statement described Macau’s overall public security situation in the first half of the year as “stable” and “propitious”.
