A local man with a criminal record for fraud was arrested on Saturday for separately cheating a local man and woman out of over two million patacas earlier this year, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The 38-year-old jobless suspect is surnamed Chan. According to his criminal records, Chan was convicted of fraud in 2014 and 2015 but he was sentenced to probation both times, Lou said.
According to Lou, a local man and woman reported to the Judiciary Police on September 10 and August 27 that they had been cheated by Chan out of over 1.8 million yuan (2.25 million patacas at yesterday’s exchange rate) and 242,048 patacas respectively this year. The male victim told the police that he met Chan in mid-July through a friend. Chan told him that he wanted to buy yuan for the purchase of a piece of land for a burial plot in the mainland and promised to let him have the exchange difference. The victim transferred over 2.1 million yuan to Chan’s bank account in the mainland but only received about HK$300,000 on August 2 from Chan. Afterwards the victim was unable to contact Chan so he reported the case to the police.
The female victim, who owns a dried seafood shop, told the police that Chan told her in mid-August that he wanted to buy yuan urgently. He told the victim to transfer 60,000 yuan to his bank account and gave her a cheque for HK$72,720. The victim then transferred 60,000 yuan to Chan’s bank account. Chan later told her that he wanted to buy an additional 100,000 yuan and showed her a purported deposit slip screenshot according to which he had transferred HK$121,212 to the victim’s account. The victim then transferred 120,000 yuan to Chan’s account, Lou said.
According to Lou, Chan later told the victim that he would open a restaurant in Macau, and he needed to pre-order a batch of seafood. Afterwards, he gave the victim four cheques, telling her that the amounts were “accidentally” overstated but could not be changed so he told the victim to transfer the “overpaid” amount of 96,000 patacas to him. All the cheques that Chan had given her bounced due to insufficient funds in the bank account. She also discovered that Chan had not transferred anything to her bank account concerning the previous transfers. After contacting Chan, who only gave her HK$52,720 on August 23, the victim was unable to contact Chan again so she reported the case to the police.
The Judiciary Police identified Chan as the suspect and arrested him on Saturday at a local casino in the city centre. Chan refused to cooperate with the police, Lou said.
Chan was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Monday, facing charges of fraud, issuance of bad cheques and computer forgery, according to Lou.
