A total of 15 locals were arrested separately on Wednesday in different areas for alleged membership of a criminal organisation, illegal gambling operations and money laundering, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said during a special press conference yesterday.
According to Chan, the 11 male and four female suspects, including a male suspected key member of a cross-border gang, surnamed Huang, and his wife, surnamed Pao, are aged between 29 and 66.
The Judiciary Police and their counterparts in Guangdong launched a simultaneous operation on Wednesday in which both forces swooped on suspects with the latter arresting 27 alleged gang members, including two suspected ringleaders in various provinces and cities.
Chan pointed out that 150 PJ officers and 150 mainland police officers were dispatched during Wednesday’s simultaneous operation.
Chan said that in March last year, through intelligence gathering, the Judiciary Police uncovered a cross-border gang consisting of members from the mainland, Macau and Taiwan who were illegally operating an online gambling platform.
Chan added that a joint investigation with the Guangdong police identified Huang as the local key member of the gang, believing that at least 14 members of the gang were in Macau. Chan also said that the gang had set up its operation centre in a residential building in Nape.
Chan pointed out that the gang, which operated several online games, such as baccarat and so-called arcade fishing games, was also suspected of having offered gambling on offshore football matches. It had a number of bases, according to Chan, in the mainland and overseas, which received gambling funds that were transferred to “manipulated” mainland bank accounts or cryptocurrencies, a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network. Chan added that most of the backend servers and group operations were located offshore.
Chan described the gang as “having had a strong sense of anti-detection”, adding that Huang had transferred illegal profits to Pao’s local bank account, while other gang members had also transferred criminal proceeds from mainland bank accounts to Macau in the form of “ants moving”, i.e., they transferred a small amount of money from their mainland bank accounts to the local bank accounts each time.
PJ officers picked up 18 people from 16 locations across Macau on Wednesday for further investigation, during which, the officers seized HK$10.7 million in cash, computers, routers, telephones, bank cards, phone cards, and other pieces of evidence.
Chan said the Judiciary Police believe that the gang began operations in 2017, involving bets of more than 18.5 billion yuan, (about 22.07 billion patacas) from which the gang had made a profit of at least 25 million yuan.
Chan said that the 15 suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday.
Evidence seized from the cross-border gang such as Hong Kong dollar and pataca notes, smartphones, bank cards and a laptop is displayed by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers at the PJ headquarters yesterday.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the 15 hooded local suspects from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a vehicle yesterday. – Photos: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
