The police made use of the citywide CCTV camera system, colloquially known as “Eyes in the Sky”, to investigate around 30 percent of the total number of crimes reported in the first three quarters of this year, Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak said in a statement yesterday.
In the first nine months of this year, the statement said, Macau’s various law enforcement agencies recorded 8,802 suspected crimes, a year-on-year increase of 24.1 percent.
In the first three quarters, the statement said, the police investigated 2,659 cases by using the “Eyes in the Sky”, accounting for 30.2 percent of the total number of reported crimes at 8,802.
According to the statement, the number of reported violent crimes increased 19.5 percent year-on-year to 202 cases in the first three quarters of this year.
Three homicides were recorded in the first three quarters of this year, according to the statement.
The statement noted that all three homicide victims were female illegal money changers from the mainland.
Two homicides were reported last year.
The statement reaffirmed that very few serious violent crime cases such as homicide and grievous bodily harm were reported in the first three quarters of this year.
The number of reported rape cases increased 38.9 percent year-on-year to 25 in the first three quarters of this year, or seven cases more than the same period of last year, while the police recorded 15 child sex abuse cases in the first three quarters of this year, three cases less than the same period of 2020.
The statement said that over half of the rape cases reported in the first three quarters of this year occurred in hotel guestrooms, while 70 percent of the victims were raped while being drunk.
The statement also said that the police detected 226 violations by cabbies in the first three quarters of this year, a 143 percent increase from the same period of last year when 93 violations were reported. The statement said that an increase in the number of visitors was possibly one of the reasons for the increased number of taxi violations.
