A 73-year-old man was arrested on Thursday in a flat in the northern district for cheating a former colleague out of 620,000 patacas last year, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong said during a regular press conference on Friday.
Chong pointed out that the local suspect, surnamed Cheng, is currently jobless, while the 59-year-old local victim works as a security guard.
According to Chong, in January 2020, Cheng told the victim that he had won a contract for an airport expansion project in the mainland, persuading the victim to lend him money for “construction materials such as sand and gravel”, as well as for other various reasons pretending that he was “in urgent need of money for the project”. Chong added that Cheng had promised the victim that he would give her an additional one million yuan as a “reward” when returning the money that he had borrowed from her.
Chong said that between January 2020 and August last year the victim had lent a total of 620,000 patacas to Cheng. Chong added that the victim lost contact with Cheng in August last year, so she reported the case to the police.
PJ officers arrested Cheng at his home in Areia Preta district on Thursday.
Under questioning, Cheng admitted to committing the crime, insisting that the money he had borrowed from the victim had been lost on gambling and used up for his daily expenses, according to Chong.
Chong said that Cheng has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a charge of fraud involving a considerably large amount of money.
This file photo taken last Tuesday shows the Judiciary Police’s (PJ) official logo above the main gate of the PJ headquarters in Zape. – Photo: Yuki Lei
