The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested two local men on Friday suspected of cheating four local men out of a total of 880,000 patacas in online-dating scams since July, PJ spokesperson said during a special press conference on Saturday.
According to the spokesperson, the four victims are local men, a young male, two middle-aged males, and an elderly male, while the two scammers are a 27-year-old local man surnamed Lo and a 29-year-old local man surnamed Pin.
The Judiciary Police received a report from one of the victims last Tuesday that in early August, he met a “woman” on an online dating platform who asked him to engage in a “rewarding task”, where he would receive a “commission” by depositing money in two designated local bank accounts, and that, moreover, he would be able to have sex with her if he succeeded in doing so.
The victim initially followed the instructions and used his personal bank account to “finish the rewarding task”, for which he received a purported commission. However, as the victim was persuaded to deposit more money, he then discovered that he could not retrieve any money, after which he became suspicious and reported the incident to the police, who said that he had suffered a loss of about 78,000 patacas.
While investigating the case, the Judiciary Police discovered that three other men had been defrauded in the same way, including an elderly man who lost over 630,000 patacas.
The Judiciary Police identified and arrested two local men who owned the bank accounts used for collecting the fraud money. The police discovered that the duo had used their personal bank accounts to collect fraudulent payments and launder money for fraud syndicates since July.
The duo were found to have handled about 300,000 patacas in fraudulent payments in their accounts, and the money was handed over to various fraud syndicates, for which they received a payment of 12,000 patacas and 5,400 patacas respectively.
The two suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Saturday, facing charges of money laundering and aggravated fraud involving a considerable amount of money.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the two hooded fraud suspects from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a PJ vehicle on Saturday. – Photo courtesy of TDM
