A male gambler from the mainland was cheated out of HK$750,000 by three men in a gambling scam last Sunday, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said during a special press conference on Friday.
Upon receiving a report from the victim at about 10 p.m. that day, PJ officers arrested two suspects on Thursday morning separately in the northern district and Taipa, Chan said, adding that the mainland suspect, aged 44, is surnamed Tian, while the local suspect, aged 40, is surnamed Shet. The officers seized HK$15,000 of suspected criminal proceeds from Tian.
Chan stressed that the Judiciary Police were tracing a third suspect who was still at large at the time the press conference, as well as the whereabouts of the money the trio cheated the victim out of.
According to Chan, after knowing that the victim, whom the third suspect had previously met at a local casino, was gambling in Macau with a large amount of cash last Sunday, he decided to conspire with Tian and Shet to defraud the victim of money. The third suspect then contacted the victim and told him that he knew someone skilled in gambling who could help him win a lot of money.
Chan said that at 8 p.m. last Sunday, the victim gave HK$900,000 in cash to the third suspect so that they could gamble together, with the suspect promising to contribute the same amount as the victim and split the winnings and losses equally, adding that the victim, together with Tian and the third suspect, gambled at a casino in Nape for about an hour. After the one-hour-long gambling session, Tian took chips worth HK$1.65 million and handed them to Shet. The trio left the casino after Tian had told the victim that all the money had been lost.
Under questioning, Tian confessed to the crime but refused to cooperate with the police, while Shet denied the offence.
The two suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing charges of fraud involving a considerable amount of money.
The two hooded gambling fraud suspects are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday.
– Photo courtesy of TDM
