A 24-year-old Hong Kong man was caught red-handed on Thursday while collecting 200,000 patacas from his male victim, who is in his seventies, of a “guess who I am” scam, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said during a special press conference on Friday.
According to Lou, the local victim received a call on his home land line from a man whose voice resembled his son’s at about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, who claimed that “he had been arrested for attacking others and was being asked for 180,000 patacas in medical fees.” Lou added that the victim, according to the fraudster’s instructions, handed the money to the suspect surnamed Wu at a bus stop outside the Grand Lisboa casino-hotel on Avenida de Lisboa at about 1:30 p.m. that day.
At about 3:30 p.m. on the same day, Lou said, the victim received another call from the “son” asking for another 200,000 patacas for medical fees, adding that the victim did not report the case to the police until he phoned his real son.
During a PJ investigation, according to Lou, the “son” called the victim once again, instructing the victim to hand over the money at a designated place.
Lou noted that PJ officers arrested Wu, who claimed to be jobless, while the victim was handing the money to him.
Under questioning, Wu told the police that due to financial difficulties and a high level of debt, he was promised 8 percent of the money defrauded from victims as a payment for collecting the fraud money from the victims in Macau as instructed, insisting that he had handed over the 180,000 patacas received from the victim to two unknown men.
The Judiciary Police were still investigating at the time of the press conference whether Wu was involved in other similar cases and tracing the whereabouts of any other suspects involved, Lou said.
Wu was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing a fraud charge involving a considerably large amount of money, Lou noted.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded Hong Kong male fraud suspect to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday.
– Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
