A female gambler in her thirties was falsely imprisoned for nearly 18 hours in a hotel guestroom in the city centre by four male loan sharks aged between 31 and 37 on Tuesday, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said during a special press conference yesterday.
According to Ho, upon receiving a report about the unlawful imprisonment from the victim’s friend at about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, PJ officers were dispatched to a hotel in the central district, where they arrested the four suspects surnamed Song, Dai, Jiang and He respectively.
Ho pointed out that the four suspects and the victim are from the mainland.
A PJ investigation shows that Song and Dai, whom the victim first met, lent her HK$100,000 to gamble at a casino in Zape on Tuesday after she had paid HK$5,000 “interest” in advance and promised to pay 20 percent “interest” on each win, Ho said, adding that the victim was taken to the hotel and falsely imprisoned after she had gambled away the money.
The case was not discovered until the victim pretended to call a friend to raise money, and secretly told the friend to call the police, Ho said.
The four suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of false imprisonment and usury, according to Ho.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the four hooded loan shark suspects to a police vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
