Camy Tam
A local man was arrested on Thursday for cheating the local government’s SME Aid Scheme out of 399,000 patacas and embezzling 200,000 patacas from a company that he co-owned, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said at a press conference on Monday.
The 41-year-old local jobless suspect is surnamed Leong.
According to Chan, a local man reported to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) through a lawyer in March that his business partner had embezzled 200,000 patacas from the company between September 2019 and March last year and cheated the government’s SME Aid Scheme out of 399,000 patacas in May 2020.
According to Chan, the victim and Leong opened a restaurant and bar in 2017 in Areia Preta district. The victim left Macau to work overseas between September 2019 and March last year and temporarily left Leong to manage the restaurant. After returning to Macau, he discovered that 200,000 patacas had vanished from the restaurant’s accounts, and Leong couldn’t explain where the money had gone. The victim also discovered that 399,000 patacas had been transferred to the company account and then withdrawn in May 2020. He suspected that Leong had defrauded the money.
Chan said the victim asked Leong about it and he admitted that he had applied for the government’s SME Aid Scheme run by the Industry and Commerce Support Division of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT) in April last year, which was supposed to be used to purchase anti-epidemic goods and paying the salaries of the restaurant’s staff. The application for an interest-free loan of 399,000 patacas was approved by the DSEDT in May last year. After receiving the loan, Leong transferred the money to his personal bank account from the company account. The victim asked Leong to return the money which Leong didn’t as he insisted that as he was the one who had applied for the loan, he would not return the money to him. The victim realised that Leong had used the company’s name to apply for the loan to defraud the government. He decided to report the case to the Public Prosecutions Office through a lawyer in March.
According to Chan, the Public Prosecutions Office notified the Judiciary Police to follow up on the investigation. The bureau told the police that Leong had indeed applied for the loan. The Judiciary Police told Leong to report to a police station on Thursday for investigation. Under questioning, Leong refused to explain the matter. PJ officers are continuing their investigation into the case.
Leong was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office on Friday, facing abuse of trust charges involving a considerable amount – officially defined as exceeding 150,000 patacas, according to Chan.
