Eight locals have been arrested for allegedly scamming a Cotai casino out of HK$4.54 million, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lei Chi Hou said during a regular press conference yesterday.
The eight suspects, ranging from their thirties to forties, comprise two casino managers, two gaming table supervisors, a dealer, a gaming promoter, a decorator, and a jewellery shop sales assistant.
According to Lei, the police received a report from the casino on Thursday, saying that some of its staff members had colluded to cheat the company out of HK$4.54 million at baccarat tables.
Lei noted that the gang allegedly conducted the cheating scheme twice, on March 29 and May 5. The group’s gaming supervisors, with the assistance of other staff accomplices, took unused cards from dealing shoes to a hotel guestroom, arranged them in a specific sequence, and then placed them back in the dealing shoe. The dealer subsequently used the manipulated arrangement of the cards, with the group’s non-casino staff suspects playing at the tables to cheat the casino.
Lei noted that the non-casino staff suspects were the masterminds of the plan, providing each participating casino employee with amounts ranging from HK$170,000 to HK$500,000 for each of the two occasions.
The suspects were apprehended on Saturday, at their workplace or home. The police managed to recover HK$2.94 million from them. Lei added that there were still additional gang members who remained at large at the time of yesterday’s press conference.
Under questioning, all of them refused to cooperate.
The octet have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing fraud charges.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the eight hooded local casino fraud suspects from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a PJ vehicle yesterday. – Photo: William Chan
Evidence seized from the eight fraud suspects such as HK banknotes and mobile phones is displayed at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters yesterday.
