Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man announced yesterday the arrest of four Guangxi men, in which the pickpocket quartet covered each other’s movements and used a pair of pincers to steal 80,000 patacas in cash from a man’s trouser pocket in the lobby of a hotel in Zape on Saturday.
During a special press conference, Chan identified the four mainland suspects aged between 38 and 57 – two surnamed Chen and the two other surnamed Zhao and Cai respectively. The quartet – three told the police that they are farmers, while the other said he’s unemployed – entered Macau separately on Friday and Saturday, when they began to conspire to randomly pickpocket pedestrians outside casinos in Zape with a pair of pincers and umbrellas.
The Judiciary Police received a report from a local senior citizen and a male non-resident worker (NRW) on Saturday evening about the disappearance of the 80,000 patacas in cash in the latter’s trouser pocket, saying that when they walked together past a hotel in Zape, they were attacked by two men holding umbrellas during which the two attackers suddenly opened their umbrellas and quickly left the scene. The non-resident worker only realised that the 80,000 patacas in cash, entrusted to him by his boss – the senior citizen walking with him – for safekeeping, had disappeared after both victims entered a hotel nearby.
A PJ investigation, according to Chan, identified the suspects as the four mainlanders, who attempted to steal the victims’ money outside a hotel in Zape under the cover of umbrellas, but after their first attempt failed, they followed them to a hotel nearby, one as a cover, while the other using a pair of pincers picked the non-resident worker’s trouser pocket containing 80,000 patacas in cash.
The Judiciary Police, Chan said, arrested the quartet in a guestroom of a hotel in the city centre, where PJ officers recovered the umbrellas, as well as part of the stolen money – 17,000 patacas, 1,900 yuan and HK$1,100 in cash. He added the police believe that the quartet had meanwhile gambled away most of the loot.
Chan noted that the four suspects refused to cooperate with police during the interrogation, adding that the four pickpockets had developed strong skills to avoid detection by the police, such as covering up for each other and looking out for each other during each theft, quickly sharing the stolen money as soon as they had pilfered it, fleeing the scene in different directions, and discarding the pair of pincers used to commit the crime.
The Judiciary Police transferred the quartet to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday for further investigation, where they face charges of organised crime and aggravated theft.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the four suspected pickpockets from Guangxi to a police vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
