Four people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in a sham marriage, Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman Cheong Heon Fan said during a press conference on Monday.
The four suspects comprise a 50-year-old man surnamed Chong who works as a manager in an engineering company; a 45-year-old woman surnamed Tam; a 40-year-old local woman surnamed Lei who works as a restaurant manager; and a 65-year-old woman surnamed Leong who is the mother of Lei and the godmother of Chong.
According to Cheong, the Identification Services Bureau (DSI) recently referred a suspected sham marriage case to the Public Security Police for follow-up investigation. PSP officers discovered that Chong and Tam, a couple originally from the mainland, had married in 1999. The couple have two children. They divorced in 2008 and remarried in 2017.
The police also discovered that Chong married Lei in 2010 and obtained a Macau Permanent Resident ID card (BIR) in 2012, after which they divorced in 2015 so that Chong could remarry his “ex-wife” Tam and help her obtain her Macau Permanent Resident ID card in 2022.
The four suspects were arrested on Thursday at their homes. Leong admitted plotting the bogus marriage for her godson Chong and her daughter Lei, while receiving 20,000 patacas as payment from Chong.
The four suspects have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of involvement in a sham marriage and document forgery, according to Cheong.
This undated pixelated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) on Monday shows PSP officers escorting the suspected sham marriage quartet to a police station.
