Five local men were nabbed for suspected money laundering and a fraudulent HK$15 million cryptocurrency deal last year, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference on Friday.
The five suspects are a 49-year-old jobless man surnamed Kou, a 36-year-old jobless man surnamed Lei, a 32-year-old businessman surnamed Wu, a 32-year-old businessman surnamed Tam, and a 31-year-old jobless man surnamed Chio.
According to the spokesman, Kou, Lei, Tam and Chio were members of a currency exchange gang. They were arrested last December for setting up a plot to cheat a mainlander out of the equivalent of HK$15 million in a cryptocurrency deal. Tam, the suspected kingpin of the gang, and Chio are being held in pre-trial detention in Coloane Prison, while Kou and Lei are on bail awaiting their trial.
The spokesman said that the gang used HK$15 million fake gaming chips pretending to buy cryptocurrency of the same value from a mainland man last November. The gang contacted the mainland seller, and after receiving the cryptocurrency, they vanished.
Lou said that the Judiciary Police continued their investigation into the case to follow up on the whereabouts of the ill-gotten money. PJ officers discovered that Wu and Tam were the gang’s leaders and the chips they showed the victim were counterfeit. According to the spokesman, after the cryptocurrency deal Tam told Kou, Lei and Chio to take HK$6.5 million and split the money between them, while Wu took more than HK$8 million. PJ officers also discovered that Lei received about HK$420,000 in his bank account after the fraud, suspecting that he was involved in money laundering connected with the case.
According to Lou, the Judiciary Police told Wu, Kou, and Lei to report to a police station last Thursday to assist in their investigation. The trio refused to cooperate with the police. PJ officers later seized from their homes luxury brand watches worth more than one million patacas in total.
The three suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing charges of fraud and money laundering, according to Lou.
Evidence seized from the suspects such as five luxury brand watches and three smartphones is displayed at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters on Friday.
The hooded fraud suspects are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle. Photos courtesy of TDM.
