The Judiciary Police (PJ) and the mainland’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) have jointly busted a “premeditated cross-border theft gang”, in which PJ officers arrested four locals separately in the northern district, Bairro Horta da Mitra and in the Avenida de Horta e Costa area on Thursday and Friday, while mainland police officers arrested two men respectively in Wuhan and Zhaoqing on Friday, PJ spokesman Leng Kam Long said during a special press conference on Saturday.
In addition, according to Leng, the Judiciary Police were notified by the Macau Customs Service (SA) of a theft on Wednesday, indicating that a local man had left a suitcase containing 4.5 million yuan (almost 5 million patacas) and a backpack in a waiting area of the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal while he went to the toilet, and subsequently found that the suitcase and backpack had vanished.
Police officers later scrutinised CCTV footage and discovered that a local man surnamed Lam and a mainland man surnamed Xie stole the victim’s backpack and suitcase that he had left in the waiting area while he was in the toilet, Leng said, adding that the 37-year-old Xie fled to the mainland via the Barrier Gate border checkpoint, while the 23-year-old Lam who fled the scene on a motorcycle handed over the stolen money to his 36-year-old brother living in a residential building in the northern district, before leaving Macau through the Qingmao checkpoint in Ilha Verde.
Upon confirming that Lam’s elder brother and mother, both surnamed Lam, had transferred the stolen money through an underground bank operated by two local men surnamed Kong and Chan, PJ officers arrested the mother and eldest son respectively at two residential flats in the northern district on Thursday and Friday, while intercepting Kong and Chan separately in Bairro Horta da Mitra and the Avenida de Horta e Costa area, Leng noted.
From the four suspects and a pawnshop in Zape, according to Leng, PJ officers recovered a total of 1.299 million yuan.
Leng added that the pawnshop owner asked that criminal action be taken against the quartet for cheating him out of 300,000 yuan.
Both Lam and Xie, who were arrested in Wuhan and Zhaoqing respectively on Friday by mainland police officers, confessed to committing the crime, in which Xie claimed that he had received 10,000 yuan to assist the gang in carrying out the theft, while Lam admitted to getting his brother and mother to transfer the stolen money to his relatives through the underground bank.
The PJ investigation found, Leng said, that Lam and Xie had visited the terminal to “survey” the area and been tasked with committing the crime, showing signs of premeditation of their organised crime.
Leng noted that the local quartet arrested in Macau – the two Lams, Kong and Chan – were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Saturday, facing charges of organised crime, aggravated theft, fraud and handling stolen goods.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the four hooded local theft suspects to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape on Saturday. – Photo: MPDG
