Three local men and a woman were taken to a police station for questioning for illegally operating a mahjong parlour on the ground floor of a shopping mall, a Public Security Police (PSP) spokesperson said at a regular press conference yesterday.
According to the police, the four suspects were found playing mahjong in the unit, which was rented by one of the men who admitted to operating the clandestine mahjong parlour paying a monthly rent of 9,000 patacas for the unit, charging players an hourly rate of about 70 patacas.
According to the police, the man in charge of the illegal mahjong parlour, surnamed Lei, is over 50 years old and said he is unemployed, while the three “mahjong players”, two men and a woman, are aged between 55 and 80.
The police seized two automatic mahjong gaming tables, suspected gambling money and money from the hourly payments from the parlour and took away a number of people who were watching the game for further investigation.
The spokesperson did not say how long the parlour had been operating.
The four suspects have been handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) for further investigation.
This photo shows the mahjong tiles and cash seized from an illegal mahjong parlour in a shopping mall, displayed during yesterday’s press conference by the Judiciary Police (PJ) at its headquarters. – Photo courtesy of TDM
