A mainland woman was cheated out of 19 luxury watches worth around 8.19 million yuan (9.88 million patacas), Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Leng Kam Lon said yesterday during a special press conference.
Leng said that the victim was told by a local woman that she could purchase luxury watches at preferential prices for the victim, so the victim ordered 40 luxury watches worth between 100,000 yuan and 1 million yuan each from the woman last year. However, the victim only received 21 watches after paying the suspect the amount for all the watches, Leng added.
Pressured by the victim, the suspect added the victim and a “watch shop owner’’ to a chat group, where the “owner” told the victim that she needed more time to wait for the watches since some of them were out of stock, according to Leng.
Leng said that last November, the victim went to the watch shop that the suspect had previously mentioned and met the real owner. She realised that the purported “owner” in the chat group was actually the suspect, who had only purchased 21 watches from the shop. Therefore, the victim reported the case to the police, Leng added.
Under investigation, PJ officers identified the suspect as a 31-year-old local woman working in an office in Zape. Leng said that the suspect surnamed Wong told the police that she’s a businesswoman.
PJ officers arrested Wong on Wednesday in the office. Under questioning, Wong admitted that she had received the victim’s money to purchase the watches, adding that she had impersonated the shop owner on social media to cheat the victim. Leng said that Wong refused to further cooperate with PJ officers.
Wong was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing a fraud charge involving a considerable sum of money, as well as a cybercrime charge.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the female fraud suspect to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters yesterday. Photo: Yuki Lei
