A local man forged two vehicle registration plates to cheat a casino-hotel resort’s carpark in Cotai out of three cars’ parking fees that he parked there between September last year and January this year, totalling 96,000 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man announced during a special press conference on Friday.
The man was arrested last week after the resort reported the case to the police last month.
Chan identified the suspect as a 51-year-old man surnamed Wong who told the police that he is a businessman. Wong owns three cars.
According to Chan, parking in the casino-hotel resort’s carpark is free for the first three hours. It is a ticketless carpark equipped with a payment system using the licence-plate recognition technology at its entrance and exit.
Chan said that Wong had forged two vehicle registration plates with the aim of fraudulently taking advantage of the carpark’s three-hour free parking so that he did not have to pay any parking fees for his three cars that he had parked there for a long time.
Wong’s modus operandi, according to Chan, was that he stuck a bogus vehicle registration plate over the car’s original one (Car A) before driving into the carpark. Afterwards, he removed the bogus plate and stuck it onto another car (Car B) that he had parked there for a period of time, i.e., more than three hours, after which he left the carpark in Car B because of which Car B could fraudulently benefit from the carpark’s three-hour free parking.
By doing this on a rotation basis, Chan said, Wong fraudulently benefited from the carpark’s three-hour free parking for his three cars (Cars A, B and C) between September 2022 and January 2023, during which he cheated the carpark out of 3,840 parking hours, corresponding to unpaid fees totalling 96,000 patacas.
According to Chan, staff members discovered early last month that someone had been defrauding the carpark of parking fees with this modus operandi, and reported the case to the police.
After investigating, Chan said, PJ officers identified Wong as the suspect, who was intercepted on Thursday last week when he returned from the mainland via the Zhuhai-Macau checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) in one of his cars.
Under questioning, Chan said, Wong admitted to having cheated the casino-hotel resort’s carpark out of parking fees.
PJ officers also seized the two bogus vehicle registration plates from Wong, Chan said.
Wong was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday afternoon for further questioning.
A Judiciary Police (PJ) officer prepares to display two bogus vehicle registration plates and two car keys in a pressroom of the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
