The Judiciary Police (PJ) received separate reports from three local women between September last year and January this year that they had been cheated out of a total of 5.5 million patacas between them in an online-dating scam, PJ spokesman Chong Kam Leong said during a special press conference yesterday.
According to Chong, the three victims, aged 18, 41 and 69, reported that they had met a netizen claiming to be a foreign man on the internet, and they later became online lovers, resulting in a loss of 10,000 patacas, more than 200,000 patacas, and five million patacas respectively.
Chong pointed out that the three victims received calls from people claiming to be “an employee of a courier company” or “customs officers” demanding payment of duties or fines for the gifts the victims’ respective “boyfriends” promised to send them. Chong added that one of the “boyfriends” even “borrowed” money from one of the victims on the grounds of a purported oil exploration project and health problems.
The Judiciary Police arrested three Vietnamese women separately on Monday in Rua da Ribeira do Patane, Iao Hon, and Rotunda de Carlos da Maia for receiving money from the victims in their bank accounts.
Chong said that the trio, surnamed Ngo, Hoang, and Choc are aged 57, 27 and 49 respectively, adding that Hoang is Ngo’s daughter, who works as a cleaner, while the other two work as domestic helpers.
Under questioning, according to Chong, Ngo told the police that she was “persuaded” by her online-dating boyfriend who claimed to be a designer, to open a bank account in Macau for his use to deposit his company’s capital turnover.
Chong pointed out that Ngo withdrew a total of 400,000 patacas from the bank account on seven occasions.
After the bank account had been frozen for collecting the victims’ money, Ngo received the victims’ money in her daughter’s bank account, who then withdrew 120,000 patacas from it, Chong said, adding that the proceeds were eventually transferred to Vietnam through Choc’s bank account.
The Judiciary Police believe, according to Chong, that the money was transferred from Vietnam to Malaysia and then to bank accounts in other countries or regions.
According to Chong, the trio insisted that they did not receive any “cut” for assisting others in receiving and transferring huge sums of money.
The trio were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of money laundering and fraud, Chong said.
Three hooded Vietnamese fraud and money-laundering suspects are being escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a PJ vehicle in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
