In three separate cases, two mainland men and a mainland woman were arrested for respectively stealing a necklace worth 500,000 yuan (555,000 patacas), a HK$100,000 casino chip and HKS60,000 in cash that they found, Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman said at a regular press conference yesterday.
In the first two cases, a female suspect in her twenties surnamed Fan and a male suspect surnamed Xiang, who is in his fifties, claiming to be unemployed and a businessman respectively, were involved, the spokesman said.
According to the spokesman, two female victims reported to the police separately that they had lost a 500,000-yuan necklace, and a HK$100,000 casino chip when they were in a taxi and in a car in Cotai in the middle of June and last Thursday respectively, both suspecting that their missing property had been found and kept by the others.
After scrutinising the Public Security Forces’ CCTV city-wide camera system, the spokesman said, the police identified and arrested the male and female suspects in the Qingmao and the Barrier Gate checkpoints respectively on Saturday.
Fan and Xiang have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing theft-by-finding charges, according to the spokesman.
Mainland man exchanged cash he found into chips
The suspect in the third case is a mainland man in his forties surnamed Huang, who told the police that he is a farmer.
According to the spokesman, Huang found and kept HK$60,000 in cash that was left in Rua de Xangai by a local male resident in the early morning of August 17.
The male victim reported to the police that his money had fallen out of his pocket when he was taking a taxi to Rua de Xangai, the spokesman said, adding that the victim could not find the cash when he went back to look for it.
Police officers later scrutinised CCTV footage, and discovered that Huang had picked up the cash, after which officers nabbed him in a hotel in Avenida da Amizade in the afternoon of the same day, and found HK$60,000 in chips on him.
Huang admitted to the crime, telling the police that he found the cash when walking along Rua de Xangai and kept it for himself out of greed, then exchanged the cash into chips for gambling purposes.
Huang has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a charge of possession of stolen property.
