Camy Tam
A male non-resident worker from the mainland was arrested on Friday for cheating two local women out of HK$21,050 and HK$12,200 respectively for their purported online purchase of 16 Bearbricks, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press briefing on Monday.
The 30-year-old suspect surnamed Cen told the police that he works as a waiter.
Bearbrick (rendered Be@rbrick – 積木熊) is a collectible toy designed and produced by the Japanese company MediCom Toy Incorporated. The name is derived from the fact that the figure is a cartoon-style representation of a bear.
According to Lou, the two women went to the local police station on April 29 to report that they had been cheated out of HK$33,250 in an online scam. The victims told the police that they had purchased online 16 Bearbricks via a Facebook page on April 14 saying that they would be delivered from Japan by express delivery. The victims received the parcel containing the Bearbricks on April 28 which was delivered to the home of one of the victims’ who paid HK$33,250 to the deliverymen. They later discovered that there were only nine Bearbricks in the parcel which were not the models they had ordered and suspected that they had been defrauded. They decided to report the case to the police.
Lou said after verification, the Judiciary Police confirmed that the nine Bearbricks were fakes, without laser labels as well as serial numbers, and the waybill on the parcel was also forged. PJ officers discovered that Cen drove a car to pick up four men who entered Macau on that day from the mainland and they went to a pick-up point in Areia Preta district to collect the parcel. The men took the parcel to the car where they stuck the forged Japanese waybill on it and then delivered it to the victim’s home. The officers identified Cen based on the car registration number and told him to report to a police station on Friday.
Under questioning, Cen told the police that he had picked up the four men and delivered the parcel according to their instructions. He claimed that he did not know what was inside the parcel but he just stuck the waybill on it. However, Cen claimed to be unable to provide personal details of the four men and claimed he didn’t know where the parcel came from. Lou said the Judiciary Police believe that Cen is involved in the case and at the time of the press conference were still looking for the four other suspects, according to Lou.
Cen was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing a fraud charge, according to Lou.
