A local couple were arrested separately at their workplace and home on Thursday for cheating a local woman out of 1.21 million patacas under the guise of “booking hotel guestrooms and buying meal vouchers at preferential prices”, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said during a special press conference on Friday.
Lou said that the 30-year-old male and 27-year-old female suspects are surnamed Wong and Ning respectively. The former works as a chef, while the latter is jobless, Lou added.
The victim, who works as an event coordinator for online bookings of hotel guestrooms and buying meal vouchers, reported to the Judiciary Police in July last year that Ning contacted her in December 2020, claiming that she could reserve hotel guestrooms and purchase meal vouchers at a “preferential price”, which could then be resold to the victim.
Lou said that the victim, who had obtained a guestroom “successfully” for the first time when she paid Ning about 1,000 patacas, transferred a total of 1.21 million patacas to Ning on several occasions to book “guestrooms with special offers” and buy “meal vouchers”.
Lou pointed out that after receiving the money, Ning used different excuses to “suspend” the victim’s guestroom bookings and meal voucher orders, and soon asked the victim to lend her money for her business. Suspecting that she had been cheated, the victim reported the case to the police in July 2020.
According to Lou, a PJ investigation confirmed that the holders of the bank account that was used to receive the victim’s money were Ning and Wong. Lou added that 830,000 patacas had been withdrawn from the account.
PJ officers arrested the duo at their home and workplace respectively on Thursday, Lou said, adding that under questioning, Ning admitted to committing the crime, insisting that the money she defrauded from the victim had been spent on daily living expenses and debt repayments, while Wong insisted that he had just “lent” the bank account to his wife to use and did not know any details related to the case.
The duo were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing a charge of fraud involving a considerable amount of money, Lou said.
Meanwhile, according to Lou, during the investigation, police discovered that Ning was involved in two other fraud cases in which both victims had reported total losses of 4,050 patacas to the Judiciary Police to purchase special editions of Macau Pass online.
Evidence seized from two local fraud suspects such as special editions of Macau Pass and calendars is displayed during Friday’s special press conference at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters in Zape. – Photo: MPDG
