A mainlander was arrested for scamming a currency exchange dealer out of 45,000-yuan (53,400 patacas), Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said during a regular press conference on Monday.
The 40-year-old suspect surnamed Zhao is a salesman.
According to Chan, Zhao and the victim initially struck a money exchange deal on January 2 in a casino in Zape. The next afternoon Zhao asked the victim for 45,000 yuan, promising he would give him HK$50,000 in casino chips later on. After the victim had transferred the money to Zhao’s account, Zhao claimed that he needed to find “his friend” to retrieve his chips and fled the scene.
Chan said that the victim then searched for Zhao for a few days and finally intercepted him in another casino in Zape on Friday. Zhao proposed that he would return HK$5,000 at the scene while also signing a HK$45,000 IOU, but the victim refused and the two got into a heated argument, eventually alerting security guards in the casino who reported the incident to the police.
Under questioning, Zhao admitted defrauding the victim and claimed that he needed money for his son’s medical treatment as he had gambled away all of the cash he had set aside for his son’s medical expenses.
Zhao has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a fraud charge, Chan said.
