A local woman was arrested on Monday for stealing HK$50,000 from her male octogenarian friend, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a special press conference yesterday.
The 40-year-old local suspect surnamed Chan told the police that she is unemployed.
According to Ho, an 82-year-old man from Hong Kong reported to the police on August 11 that his female friend stole HK$50,000 in cash from his hotel guestroom earlier that day. He told the police that he met the suspect last month when he came to Macau. He visited Macau early this month and invited Chan to join him for sightseeing and casino gambling. They went out on August 11 and returned to his hotel in the city centre at about 9 p.m. to take a nap. The victim woke up at about an hour later and discovered that his friend had disappeared and HK$50,000 cash, which he had kept in his shoulder bag, had vanished. He reported the case to the police.
Ho said that PJ officers scrutinised the CCTV footage and identified Chan as the suspect. The officers discovered that she had left Macau on the same night and was arrested on Monday when she re-entered Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint. Chan admitted that she stole the money from her friend, claiming that as she’s addicted to gambling, she had gambled away the HK$50,000. Ho added that the Judiciary Police suspect that Chan was involved in another fraud case and the police have launched an investigation into both cases.
Chan was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing an aggravated theft charge, according to Ho.
The local theft suspect is being escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle yesterday. Photo courtesy of TDM
