In two separate cases, a man from the mainland and a Hong Kong man respectively, have been arrested for stealing a phone and handbag, Public Security Police (PSP) spokeswoman Lai In Hong said at a regular press conference yesterday.
The suspects are a 30-year-old man surnamed Wang and a Hong Kong man surnamed Lee in his fifties. Lai did not reveal the suspects’ occupations.
In the first case, the police received a report from a resident on March 26 saying that he had left a phone worth 8,000 patacas on a bench in a Cotai shopping mall. After he realised that he had left the phone behind 30 minutes later, he returned to the bench and found it had vanished, so he reported the case to the police.
After scrutinising their citywide CCTV camera system, the police identified Wang and intercepted him in the Avenida de Horta e Costa neighbourhood on Sunday. The phone was found on him. Under questioning, Wang admitted to stealing the phone.
In the second case, the Public Security Police received a report from a visitor saying that on February 6 she had left a handbag, containing 21,480 patacas in cash, in a taxi. The police then checked their citywide CCTV surveillance system and discovered that Lee had picked up the handbag. He was arrested at the checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) on Sunday.
Under questioning, Lee admitted to stealing the handbag out of greed. He removed the cash and threw the handbag away. He claimed that he had spent all the ill-gotten money.
The two suspects have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing theft-by-finding charges, Lai said.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows a police officer escorting the mainland theft-by-finding suspect to a police station in Taipa for questioning.
