A president of a local non-profit drama organisation has been arrested for cheating the Cultural Development Fund out of 269,500 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said in a regular press conference yesterday.
The female suspect surnamed Tang is in her fifties.
As per the request of the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), the Judiciary Police conducted an investigation into Tang’s organisation in February about the 269,500 patacas Tang had received in subsidies from the Cultural Development Fund in 2020. The purpose of the subsidies was to produce and broadcast a musical stage play online, which was scheduled to take place from late 2021 to early 2022.
The police later found that the stage play was merely an edited version of an old production from 2019, for which the organisation had also received over 300,000 patacas in subsidies. Lei noted that the production company hired by the organisation and the actors listed in the subsidy application had not been involved in any way with the creation or execution of the new stage play.
Tang was arrested on Tuesday in her flat in Coloane. She refused to cooperate.
Tang has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office, facing charges of fraud and document forgery.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference.
– Photo: William Chan
