A local casino dealer and a mainland gambler were arrested separately last Wednesday for jointly cheating a casino in Cotai out of at least HK$440,000, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lei Chi Hou said at a regular press conference on Friday.
The local suspect, aged 44, is surnamed Cheang, while the 43-year-old mainland suspect, who told the police that he is a non-resident worker (NRW) employed as a security guard, is surnamed Zheng. Both male suspects share the same hometown in the mainland, Lei said.
The Judiciary Police, according to Lei, received a report from the gaming operator at the end of last month about the scam, according to which the casino’s CCTV footage showed that both conspired to defraud the company. The footage revealed that Cheang paid Zheng “winnings” in baccarat games even though he had lost his bets.
The PJ’s further investigations showed that the duo cheated the casino on at least 11 occasions over a five-day period between October 15-29, said Lei, who did not identify the gaming operator.
Upon identifying the two suspects, the Judiciary Police arrested Zheng in the Areia Preta district on Wednesday morning, while they arrested Cheang in the afternoon when he entered Macau via the Barrier Gate border checkpoint.
Under questioning, both insisted that they had cheated the casino out of no more than HK$340,000, adding that Zheng collected the “winnings” from the baccarat games before they shared the “spoils” in Zhuhai, according to Lei, who pointed out that Cheang and Zheng said that they had “earned” HK$220,000 and HK$120,000 from the scam respectively.
However, the gaming operator told the police that the duo cheated the casino out of at least HK$440,000.
In the operation, Lei said, PJ officers recovered HK$150,000 in cash from Cheang’s home.
The duo have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of fraud involving a considerably large amount of money, Lei noted.
