Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman Wong Wai Chon announced yesterday the separate arrests of two male thieves, one of whom, a local resident in his sixties, has a criminal record for four thefts carried out between 2009 and 2013.
According to Wong, a mainland man reported to the Public Security Police last Friday that 2,000 patacas in cash had gone missing from his trouser pocket after shopping at a shop on Rua da Tribuna, suspecting that someone had picked his pocket and then left.
The Public Security Police identified the pickpocket, via the shop’s CCTV footage, as a local man surnamed Chio, who approached the victim, covered his movements with a recycling bag, and then stole the cash from the victim’s trouser pocket, Wong noted.
The Public Security Police arrested Chio in the vicinity of the shop, Wong said, adding that the suspect denied committing the crime.
Meanwhile, the Public Security Police received a report in mid-January from a female visitor from the mainland about the disappearance of HK$5,000 in cash, saying that she was told that a friend, whom she got to know in the mainland in 2018, was also visiting Macau at the same time as her, so she asked him to her hotel guestroom to have a chat and take a rest, adding that when she woke up, the friend surnamed Lei had already left her room, while HK$5,000 in cash had vanished.
The Public Security Police arrested the mainland man surnamed Lei in his forties last Friday when he re-entered Macau through the Taipa Ferry Terminal.
Under questioning, according to Wong, Lei admitted to stealing the money, all of which, he claimed, had been spent.
Wong noted that Chio and Lei have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), both facing theft charges.
These undated handout photos provided by the Public Security Police yesterday show the local pickpocket (left) and the mainland thief being escorted by police officers to police stations in the northern district and Taipa respectively.
