A jobless woman from the mainland was arrested on Friday for cheating a 31-year-old businessman out of 179,040 yuan (210,212 patacas) in a currency exchange scam using bogus banknotes earlier that day in a hotel lobby in Cotai, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said in a regular press conference at the Public Security Police (PSP) headquarters in Zape on Monday.
According to Lou, the 42-year-old suspect surnamed Lu claimed that she was instructed by two currency exchange dealers, whom she had met in a casino, via WeChat to exchange 179,040 yuan into HK$200,000 for the mainland victim in a hotel in Cotai.
Lou added that after the victim transferred the yuan into a designed bank account provided by Lu, she gave a wad of 206 HK$1,000 notes which the victim soon found were counterfeit banknotes with the words “Film and Television Bank” (also known as prop notes) printed on each of them, so the victim immediately called the police.
PJ officers arrested Lu on Friday when they seized 103 HK$1,000 prop notes from the suspect who insisted that she was assigned by the two currency exchange dealers to bring the banknotes from Zhuhai to Macau for the duo’s clients.
Lu told the police that she was promised 10,000 yuan for every 100,000 yuan in exchange deals.
Lu was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Monday, facing a fraud charge involving a considerable amount of money.
