A local car sales showroom owner was arrested earlier last week for using the ID cards of her friends and relatives to apply for seven extra non-resident worker (NRW) quotas from the government, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said at a special press conference yesterday afternoon.
Lei said the main suspect is a 51-year-old woman surnamed Leong. The other five suspects, who are her relatives and friends, comprise four women in their fifties and a male university student in his twenties.
According to Lei, the Judiciary Police were tipped off by someone on October 10 last year that a car sales showroom in the city centre was involved in fake employment for extra NRW quotas. During their investigation, PJ officers found that Leong had been falsely hiring locals since 2008 so that she could acquire seven more NRW workers for her car sales showroom.
Lei also said that Leong had also applied for the government’s “temporary subsidy scheme to encourage employers to hire unemployed local residents during the COVID-19 pandemic”, and received a total of 186,400 patacas, while the other five suspects also received 40,000 patacas each for their employment in Leong’s car sales showroom due to variousgovernment’s pandemic subsidy schemes.
Lei underlined that the quintet never worked in Leong’s car sales showroom.
Leong was arrested earlier this week in the city centre, while 120,000 patacas in cash, which the police assume was part of the government’s subsidy, was seized from her flat, while the quintet were also taken to a police station for questioning, during which they admitted the wrongdoing and claimed that the fake jobs did not involve any pecuniary benefit.
The six suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing document forgery and fraud charges, Lei said.
The hooded female suspect is escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a vehicle yesterday. –Photos: William Chan
Bank notes and documents seized from the suspect’s home are displayed during yesterday’s special press conference.
