Five locals have swindled 27 parallel traders out of a total of 3.57 million patacas, with the biggest loss accounting for 580,000 patacas, while the smallest was 1,500 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong said during a special press conference yesterday.
Parallel traders buy products in markets where they are sold at lower prices and sell them in markets across the border at a higher price. The flow of products thereby created is called parallel trade.
The local middle-aged victims reported their losses to the Judiciary Police and Public Security Police (PSP) separately on Friday and Saturday, saying that they had purchased large quantities of dried seafood, such as scallops and abalone at high prices from three trading companies in the northern district between Thursday and Saturday, after which, on the instruction of the shop assistants, they smuggled the goods to a designated shop in Zhuhai in order to receive their return payment and a “commission”. The victims said that when they delivered the relevant goods to the shop in Zhuhai, it refused to accept the goods while, at time same, the three local trading companies also refused to refund them their payments.
According to Chong, the three trading companies sold the victims each pack of abalone at 2,100 patacas, each pack of dried fish maw at 3,800 patacas, each pack of dried tube fish maw at 8,250 patacas, as well as 2,700 patacas per box of dried scallops, promising them a “commission” of about 100 to 200 patacas for taking the goods across the border to the shop in Zhuhai each time. Chong added that the dried seafood was then confirmed to be worth only a few hundred patacas per pack.
A PJ investigation identified, Chong noted, the owner of the three trading companies as a 32-year-old local man surnamed Ng who told the police that he is jobless. The Judiciary Police arrested him as well as four of his local employees – two females, aged 41 and 28, surnamed Ieong and Chan respectively; and two males, aged 19 and 32, surnamed Wong and Cheang respectively – at the shops in the northern district on Saturday.
According to Chong, the three trading companies, which started operations two years ago, were registered by a non-local resident.
Chong said that the quintet refused to cooperate with the police when questioned. However, according to the results of the PJ investigation, there are indications that they tricked the parallel traders into buying the dried seafood at a high price in order to make money out of the deals.
The quintet were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday for further investigation, facing charges of fraud involving a considerable amount of money, Chong noted.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong (left), flanked by an unnamed PJ officer, addresses yesterday’s special press conference, with various items of evidence, including dried seafood, displayed in a pressroom of the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
