The Judiciary Police (PJ) received separate reports between last Friday and this past Monday from 10 locals who had fallen victim to a “MPay phishing SMS scam”, incurring a total loss of 68,978 patacas, PJ spokesman Lei Chi Hou said at a special press conference yesterday.
In the 10 fraud cases, the victims, comprising five males and five females, told the police separately that they had received a bogus MPay text message “reminding” them to redeem their points for gifts as they would soon expire. The victims then clicked on the link in the message and logged into their individual accounts.
According to Lei, the victims reported their case to the police after they realised that their MPay account had been stolen and used on an online shopping platform, reporting a loss of between 1,100 patacas and 15,500 patacas each.
A PJ investigation identified a criminal gang which had set up at least four MPay phishing websites, with their servers located overseas, Lei said, adding that whenever the gang had stolen MPay accounts from their victims via the purported MPay text message, they would spend the accounts’ deposits on alcoholic beverages and cosmetic and beauty care products via an online shopping platform, which would deliver their orders to pickup points in Macau’s northern district as their request, waiting for its gang members from the mainland to collect the products and smuggle them to the mainland.
Lei noted that PJ officers identified and arrested two members of the gang, surnamed Huang and Chen, on Monday when they were about to collect the products that the gang had ordered.
Under questioning, Huang, 23, and Chen, 26, who entered Macau separately last weekend, denied involvement in the scams. However, Lei added, both told the police that each of them had received a daily commission of 1,000 yuan to collect the products in the northern district and hand them over to the gang in the mainland.
In the operation, PJ officers seized a quantity of alcoholic beverages and cosmetic and beauty care products from the two suspects’ luggage and their guestroom of a hotel in Cotai, Lei said.
The Judiciary Police believe, according to Lei, that the gang has been in operation since last Tuesday. Lei said the police did not rule out the possibility that more people have been defrauded in such scams.
Both Huang and Chen were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing a range of computer-related charges.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lei Chi Hou (centre) and two senior PJ officers host yesterday’s special press conference about the MPay phishing scam, with various items of evidence, including alcoholic beverages and cosmetic and beauty care products, displayed in a pressroom of the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
