The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested a Hong Kong man last week for having cheated a number of individuals and companies out of around 400,000 patacas since 2004 by asking them to sponsor the publications of commemorative books about various sporting activities and events in the city, even though he had never been authorised by the organisers of the activities or events to publish such commemorative books, PJ spokesman Lou Chan Fai said during a regular press conference on Thursday.
Lou identified the suspect as a 68-year-old surnamed Chow who told the police that he is a businessman.
According to Lou, the Sports Bureau (ID) reported to the Judiciary Police on March 23 that the owner, surnamed Chow, of a centre providing sports’ information, which is located in San Kio district, had asked a number of individuals and companies to sponsor the publication of a commemorative book about the Macau Sports Day for People with Disabilities by placing advertisements in the book.
The Sports Bureau confirmed that Chow is not a member of the local sports’ sector, and neither is the centre a sporting organisation registered with the bureau.
According to Lou, neither the Sports Bureau nor the organisers of the Macau Sports Day for People with Disabilities had authorised Chow’s centre to publish a commemorative book. Suspecting that the centre was cheating people out of money, the Sports Bureau decided to report the case to the police for further investigation.
After investigating, PJ officers identified Chow as the suspect and managed to contact seven individuals and companies who had been defrauded by Chow, Lou said.
According to Lou, the individuals and companies told the police that the centre had previously asked them to sponsor the publications of commemorative books about various sporting activities and events, including the Macau Sports Day for People with Disabilities. They decided to sponsor them after the centre showed them leaflets fraudulently indicating that it had been authorised to publish the commemorative books.
PJ officers contacted Chow on Monday last week and told him to go to the PJ headquarters for questioning. Chow admitted that he started in 2004 to cheat individuals and companies out of money, by asking them to sponsor the publications of commemorative books about various sporting events by placing advertisements in the books, by falsely claiming that he had been authorised by the respective organisers to publish the books.
Lou said that after receiving the sponsorship fees from the victims, Chow printed a number of commemorative books and handed them to the victims, as a way of convincing them that he was working on the publications of the books.
By cheating victims that way, Lou said, Chow had defrauded them of a total of around 400,000 patacas since 2004.
For the case reported by the Sports Bureau last month, i.e., the Macau Sports Day for People with Disabilities, Lou said, Chow had received sponsorship fees of around 50,000. Chow used 17,000 patacas of the money to print 100 commemorative books, so that he fraudulently profited from the difference between what he had received from the fraud victims and the books’ production costs, Lou said.
According to Lou, Chow had used photos and statements released by the Sports Bureau for the production of the various commemorative books.
Chow was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further questioning and investigation.
The official logo of the Sports Bureau (ID).
