An illegal currency exchange dealer was arrested on Saturday for cheating a male gambler out of 455,000 yuan at a hotel lobby in Cotai with practice banknotes, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said during a regular press conference yesterday, adding that based on his confession, PJ officers arrested his accomplice when he was entering Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Sunday.
According to Wikipedia, a practice banknote is generally similar in size, shape and colour to circulating banknotes and are used for training bank tellers, cashiers and staff at currency exchanges.
Ho said that the two male suspects from the mainland, aged 22 and 21, are surnamed Wei and Tan respectively.
According to Ho, a mainland tourist contacted Wei through a smartphone app on Saturday, asking to exchange 455,000 yuan for HK$500,000 at a hotel lobby in Cotai. Ho added that after transferring the yuan to the mainland bank account provided by Wei, the victim received three wads of “Hong Kong dollars notes” from Wei which he soon discovered were practice banknotes, so he immediately confronted Wei about it and called the police.
PJ officers arrived at the scene and found 258 practice banknotes on Wei, who admitted that he and Tan were hired to use the practice banknotes for cheating people in Macau, according to Ho.
Ho said that PJ officers arrested Tan on Sunday when they found 321 HK$1,000 practice notes on him.
Under questioning, Tan admitted that he had cheated a man out of 53,000 yuan in the same way, insisting that he had returned the money to the victim when he was exposed on the spot, said Ho.
Both Tan and Wei told the police that each of them was promised by “someone” to be paid 5,000 yuan for each “successful” transaction.
The duo have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of fraud involving a considerably large amount of money.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference at the Public Security Police (PSP) pressroom in Zape. – Photo: Yuki Lei
