Macau Customs Service (SA) officers arrested two local men on Sunday at the Macau Yacht Club on Avenida Marginal do Lam Mau for people smuggling using a yacht to bring two mainlanders illegally from Zhuhai to Macau, according to an SA statement on Tuesday.
The statement said that the two mainlanders – a male and a female – caught at the yacht club at the same time were illegal immigrants who had paid “a lot of money” to the two local suspects for helping them enter Macau “leisurely”.
According to the statement, after scrutinising the yacht’s CCTV footage and the government’s “auxiliary system for screening travellers”, customs officers found that at about 9:30 a.m. on Sunday the two local suspects sailed the yacht from the yacht club and left the coastal waters administered by the local government en route to Zhuhai’s Dong’ao Island, instead of towards the coastal waters near Hac Sa Beach in Coloane, the route they had declared to the Macau Customs Service before setting off.
About two hours later, the statement added, the two local suspects, who were legal arrivals listed in the “Crew and Yacht Entry and Exit Declaration Form” disembarked from the yacht, together with the two mainland suspects, who failed to show their valid identity documents for their stay in Macau and tried to sneak into Macau by walking closely behind the local duo.
Under questioning, the statement said, the two local suspects denied assisting the mainland duo to enter Macau illegally. However, the two mainland suspects admitted to entering Macau illegally, insisting that they were picked up by the local duo’s yacht in Zhuhai’s coastal waters near Dong’ao Island.
The quartet are aged between 32 and 43, the statement noted. The two local suspects have been remanded in custody, while the two mainland suspects have been transferred to the Public Security Police (PSP) for further investigation.
This undated handout photo provided by the Macau Customs Service (SA) on Tuesday shows its officers escorting two locals and two mainlanders allegedly involved in a people-smuggle case to an SA vehicle outside its headquarters.
