Eleven mainland women have fallen victims to a ticket scam, in which they purchased early this year tickets for a sports event in Macau online for between 2,800 yuan and 8,000 yuan and were instructed to enter the venue through the staff entrance on the day of the event, but were discovered by security guards to have been defrauded during the second ticket check, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Kim Fong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
“The Judiciary Police received reports from the 11 victims who said they had been defrauded by someone who sold them tickets online to a sports event in Macau, reporting a total of 46,350 yuan, equivalent to about 52,670 patacas,” Cheong said.
On April 21 this year, the 11 victims arrived at a hotel in Taipa for the sports event and met a woman and a man to receive their tickets, who, however, asked them to wait at the ticket gate and instructed them to sneak into the event venue when the security guards checking the tickets at the entrance were distracted, according to Cheong, who noted that in the end, the 11 victims were stopped and searched by the security guards at the event venue as they had no tickets, which revealed the scam.
The Judiciary Police identified the suspects who had returned to the mainland after the scam, Cheong said, adding that with the assistance of the Public Security Police (PSP), the Judiciary Police arrested a male suspect surnamed Li when he re-entered Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Sunday evening.
Under questioning, the 28-year-old suspect from the mainland admitted to having cheated the 11 victims, but refused to reveal the whereabouts of his female accomplice and the money fraudulently obtained from the 11 victims.
Li has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of fraud involving a large sum of money.
