A South Korean has been arrested for cheating six male mainlanders and a Hong Kong woman out of a total of 1.75 million patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said during a special press conference yesterday.
The 45-year-old male suspect surnamed Lee told the police he’s a businessman.
According to Lou, the victims, who reported the case to the police separately between July and September 2021, said that in late 2019 they found in the comment sections of YouTube a person claiming to be the founder of a company and constantly boasting about his gambling and investment skills.
When the victims separately contacted the person, Lee asked them to invest in a project that he alleged was “risk-free” and “profit guaranteed”, promising a return of 0.25 to 1 percent for every US$1,000 invested, within a certain timeframe. He also invited each of them to meet him in Macau separately and showed some of the victims his office in the city centre to convince them he was legitimate.
After meeting Lee in person and being convinced by him, the victims followed his instructions to download a mobile trading platform app and invested a total amount ranging from 48,000 to 530,626 patacas.
According to Lou, the victims comprise a pilot, real-estate agent, businessman, sales representative, electrician and an interior designer from the mainland, as well as a self-employed woman from Hong Kong.
The victims received small returns until March 2021, after which no more returns were received and they subsequently lost contact with Lee, who had left Macau in early April 2021.
Lou said the police later discovered that Lee had gambled away a total of over HK$4 million in various casinos during his stay in Macau, and that he rented the office just for a month to pretend that he’s the owner of a company.
Lee was arrested on Saturday when he entered Macau through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge checkpoint; he refused to cooperate with police.
Lee was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing fraud charges, Lou said.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded fraud suspect to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photos: William Chan
Evidence including bank notes, a laptop and smart phones seized from the South Korean suspect is displayed during yesterday’s special press conference at the PJ headquarters in Zape.
