A male mainlander who reported to the police on January 30 that someone owed him money was arrested on the same day for holding that person’s mainland identity and travel documents, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong said at a press conference on Friday.
The 33-year-old suspect surnamed Zhou told the police that he is unemployed.
According to Chong, the victim got to know Zhou in the middle of last year, and then borrowed 12,000 yuan from him to gamble in a casino in Cotai in September. The victim told Zhou that if he gambled away all the money, he would nevertheless repay him immediately. However, the victim vanished after he lost the money and blocked Zhou’s WeChat account on his smartphone.
Chong said that Zhou met the victim again in a casino in Cotai at end of last month and asked him to repay the money, but the victim claimed that it would take some time to repay the money, so Zhou went with the victim to the latter’s hotel guestroom where the victim handed his mainland ID card and travel document to Zhou for “safekeeping”. The victim asked Zhou to give him back the documents once he repaid the loan.
According to Chong, Zhou suspected that the victim would be unable to repay the debt so he reported the case to the Judiciary Police. Zhou admitted that he lent money to the gambler and kept his identity documents in order to put pressure on the victim to repay the money and ensure that he wouldn’t escape. The victim never repaid the gambling loan.
Zhou has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a charge of retaining another person’s identity documents, which is illegal in Macau, Chong pointed out.
