A woman from the mainland has been arrested for selling a fake smartphone, Public Security Police (PSP) spokeswoman Kong Chi Ian said yesterday at a regular press conference.
The suspect surnamed Zeng is in her forties. She told the police that she’s jobless.
According to Kong, the police received a report in April from a local man saying that he had been defrauded by a scammer who sold him a fake smartphone in the street near the Barrier Gate checkpoint. The scammer, Zeng, approached the victim who was sitting on a bench and told him that she had gambled away all her money and was in urgent need of cash. She offered to sell “her” phone for 5,300 patacas which the victim agreed to buy.
The victim later discovered that the smartphone was counterfeit and did not have basic calling functions. He reported the scam to the police, who scrutinised CCTV footage that helped them identify Zeng. She was arrested when she re-entered Macau through the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Sunday.
A total of four fake smartphones were seized from the suspect. Under questioning, she confessed to selling the fake phone to the victim and claimed that she had spent all the ill-gotten money on her daily expenses.
Zeng has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a fraud charge, according to Kong.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows a PSP officer escorting the fraud suspect to the northern district police station.
