Victim forgot to pay for 19.80 pataca can of food
A cashier of a supermarket blackmailed a woman in her seventies who forgot to pay for a can of food priced at 19.8 patacas into paying 10,000 patacas last week as otherwise he would report her to the police for “shoplifting”, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said during a regular press conference on Monday.
In addition to the cashier, the supermarket’s manager was also arrested last week because he had given the cashier the green light to handle any alleged shoplifting in such as a manner, according to Chan.
Chan identified the cashier as a 37-year-old male non-resident worker from the mainland surnamed Ouyang, and the manager as a 57-year-old local man surnamed Lao.
According to Chan, the woman shopped in the supermarket in Avenida do Almirante Lacerda (罅些喇提督大馬路) on Wednesday last week. After she had paid for her purchases at the checkout, Ouyang discovered that she had forgotten to pay for the can priced at 19.80 patacas and stopped her.
The woman told Ouyang that she could pay 100 patacas as compensation. However, the cashier refused, and told her that she needed to pay 20,000 patacas to settle the matter as otherwise he could report her to the police for “shoplifting”, Chan said.
After negotiating the amount, according to Chan, the cashier agreed that the woman could pay “just” 10,000 patacas in exchange for not reporting her to the police for “shoplifting”. However, the woman did not have enough cash on her so she left her ring and necklace as “collateral” before going to an ATM to withdraw the 10,000 patacas, Chan said.
The woman withdrew the money from an ATM and returned to the supermarket to pay Ouyang 10,000 patacas in cash, after which she was allowed to get back her ring and necklace and leave, Chan said.
After the woman returned home, she told her family about the incident. The family concluded that it was “unreasonable” for the cashier to request 10,000 patacas for such an incident, and decided to report the case to the police, according to Chan.
PJ officers went to the supermarket on Thursday last week to question Ouyang and Lao. The officers found the 10,000 patacas paid by the woman in a safe at the supermarket, Chan said.
Under questioning, Ouyang told the PJ officers that Lao had authorised him to handle shoplifting cases himself. Concerning the woman’s case on Wednesday last week, Ouyang admitted that he told her to pay 10,000 patacas in exchange for him not reporting her “shoplifting” to the police.
Ouyang told the PJ officers that after he received the 10,000 patacas from the woman, he reported the case to Lao, who then agreed with the way Ouyang had handled the case, according to Chan.
Chan said the PJ officers concluded that it was “obviously unreasonable” for Ouyang to charge the woman 10,000 patacas as “compensation” as it was 500 times the price of the can, in exchange for him not to report the case to the police.
Both suspects face extortion charges, and have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further questioning and investigation.
According to Article of 215 of the Macau Penal Code, extortion is punishable by a prison term of between two and eight years.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man speaks during Monday’s regular press conference.
Photo courtesy of TDM
