The Public Prosecutions Office (MP) said in a statement yesterday that between January last year and May this year, i.e., during a 17-month period, it laid charges against 41 juveniles aged 16 and over, while it imposed educational supervision or social protection measures on 183 minors below the age of 16.
The office urged the public to enhance their legal awareness, care and education of minors, so as to prevent them from being taken advantage of by “lawless elements” and committing crimes that endanger civil society.
The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested late last month two 17-year-old Hongkongers, a male and a female, for purporting to be a lawyer and paralegal, respectively, to collect about 270,000 patacas of fraudulently obtained money from four local senior citizens victimised by “guess who I am” phone scams (as reported by the Post on May 30).
The office noted that “after the first judicial interrogation of the two suspects, taking into account the fact that the duo are not Macau residents, and the seriousness of their offences, and in order to prevent the two suspects from fleeing from Macau, continuing to commit offences of the same nature, and disrupting public order and public tranquillity, the examining magistrate of the office’s Criminal Investigation Department, on the recommendation of the prosecutor in charge of the respective investigation, remanded the two juvenile suspects in custody”.
The teen duo were transferred by the Judiciary Police to the Public Prosecutions Office on May 29 for suspected fraud involving a considerably large amount of money, fraud involving a large sum of money, and fraud, which, according to the statement, are punishable by, respectively, up to 10 years, five years, and three years in jail.
According to Macau Penal Code, criminal responsibility only applies to those of the age of 16 or above. Offenders under the age of 16 cannot be held criminally liable for their deeds. However, the authorities can impose extrajudicial measures on them such as educational supervision and social protection procedures.
The statement underlined that the Public Prosecutions Office will continue to investigate the case involving the teen duo from Hong Kong.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the two hooded Hong Kong teenage fraud suspects to a PJ vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape after a press conference about their case late last month. – Photo: Yuki Lei
