A man from Hong Kong has been arrested for his involvement in two “guess who I am” phone fraud scams, totalling 370,000 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said during a special press conference yesterday.
The 27-year-old suspect surnamed Lao told the police he’s jobless. The two victims are elderly women.
According to Lei, one of the victims reported to the police on Sunday that she had previously received phone calls from a male imposter pretending to be her “grandson”, and was defrauded out of 70,000 patacas. The imposter claimed that he had caused injury to someone and needed money for settlement. The victim handed over cash to the suspect who posed as a “lawyer” the next day. She realised that she had been defrauded after phoning her real grandson.
Upon receiving the report, Lei said, the Judiciary Police identified Lao as the “lawyer” and arrested him when he attempted to leave Macau through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) on Tuesday.
Under questioning, Lao confessed to collecting the money while posing as a “lawyer.” He told the police that he was coerced by a telecommunications fraud gang to commit the crime in order to repay his gambling debt. Additionally, Lao said that there was another victim who had been defrauded of over 300,000 patacas. Lao told the police that he promptly deposited the money into the gang’s bank account after receiving it from the victim. For his involvement, he received a payment of 22,000 patacas from the gang, Lei said.
Lei added that the police had located the other victim, who was unaware of being scammed until the police informed her about it.
Lao was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of money laundering and fraud involving a considerably large amount of money, Lei said.
The hooded male fraud suspect from Hong Kong is escorted by police officers from the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters in Zape to a vehicle.
– Photo: William Chan
