The Judiciary Police (PJ) busted two usury cases last week, arresting six mainlanders in Cotai, PJ spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said at a special press conference on Friday, adding that a female gambler was falsely imprisoned for 9 ½ hours in a hotel guestroom.
At about 7 a.m. on Thursday when the Judiciary Police received a call from the mainland victim about her unlawful imprisonment in a hotel guestroom in Cotai, PJ officers were dispatched to the scene, where they arrested a 29-year-old man surnamed Huang, according to Lei.
Lei said that the victim borrowed HK$200,000 on two occasions from loan sharks whom she met outside a casino in Cotai. According to the deal, Lei added, the victim had to pay 50 percent “interest” on each win.
According to Lei, the victim gambled away all the money she had borrowed on the same day, while the loan sharks had already deducted HK$40,000 as “interest” from the victim’s winnings but she was still unable to repay the debt and the remaining “interest” of HK$800,000 at once, after which the loan sharks took her to a guestroom.
Lei said that Huang refused to cooperate with the police, but the Judiciary Police believe that about seven other people involved in the case were still at large at the time of the press conference, adding that the police were trying to track down the whereabouts of the suspects.
Meanwhile, the Judiciary Police arrested four males and a female aged 26, 27, 28, 32 and 42, surnamed Liu, Ni, Pan, Cheung and Jiang respectively, at a casino VIP room in Cotai on Thursday for alleged involvement in loan-sharking activities, Lei said.
During a routine patrol at a casino in Cotai at noon on Thursday, PJ officers saw that a gambler handed over a casino chip worth HK$100,000 to Pan after he had hit a lucky streak, which was then exchanged for 10 chips worth HK$10,000 each by Liu, Lei said, adding that the officers arrested the five suspects at about 1 p.m. that day as they suspected that the quintet had deducted usurious “interest” from the gambler.
The gambler told the police that he had borrowed HK$300,000 from Liu under a deal of a 20 percent “interest” on each win, adding that the quintet had already deducted HK$70,000 worth of chips as “interest” from his winnings.
In the operation, according to Lei, the officers seized from Liu seven chips worth HK$10,000 each and a red stamp pad suspected to be used for signing IOUs.
Huang, as well as the quintet, were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing charges of false imprisonment and usury, Lei noted.
The six hooded loan-sharking suspects are escorted, one of them separately, by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a police vehicle in Zape after Friday’s special press conference. – Photos courtesy of TDM
